I’ve written about Working Dogs for Conservation before, but I thought it was time for an update. They’re on my mind because we spent a recent Sunday hiking around a beautiful Montana property as part of a fundraiser for them. Tough work, I know, but Cali and Koala decided that we were up for it, so off we went.

Working Dogs for Conservation trains dogs to search for all kinds of rare and endangered wildlife and plants. They’re based here in Missoula, and they do a variety of interesting projects here and around the world.

Locally, besides the hike / run fundraiser, they also partner with REI to clean up popular dog-walking and hiking areas.

But their real work is in conservation, obviously. A new project in Arizona uses telemetry — remote data collection and transmission — and radio-collared ferrets to hone their dogs’ ferret-tracking skills. They use the telemetry equipment to locate ferrets. The handler doesn’t know the exact location of the ferret, only the general area. The dogs signal a find by lying down next to a burrow that has a ferret inside. The handler can then check the data report to verify the dog’s find. The dog’s reward is a ball game. (Cali would love this job!)

The dogs in training are good at this. They successfully identify burrows where a ferret is or has recently been 97% of the time. I don’t know about you, but I probably make a lot more errors than that in my work …

Their dogs also identify watercraft infected with invasive mussels in Montana, detect invasive insects and weeds, combat poaching and trafficking in endangered wildlife … and more.

There’s a lot to like about Working Dogs for Conservation. They train rescued shelter dogs, for one. They’ve started a program called Rescues 2the Rescue that networks with shelters all over the US to identify high-energy, intense dogs. These dogs are hard to place in family homes, but are often ideal candidates for search, detection, law enforcement, or other skilled work that requires a high drive. Rescues 2the Rescue matches up the candidate dogs with trainers and organizations who can employ them.

They also really “get” dogs and respect dogs’ abilities. “Their extraordinary abilities help us collect more and better data in the field, and their potential to find conservation targets is seemingly endless,” the website says.

Check out this organization. Better yet, if you’re in a position to donate or volunteer, consider helping them out.