What About the Dogs?

Abby and London's Story

Preface: As I write this post, the Department of Education is being dismantled, while Trump sells Teslas on the front lawn of the White House. This is a bizarre timeline in which we live, but my goal for this series “What About the Dogs” is to highlight working dog teams who have been directly affected by the changes the current administration is implementing. What started out as a small series about how the cuts to our National Parks have affected dogs is morphing into something bigger. Of course, these things always take on a life of their own and I am just the vessel through which they come to life.

When you read this post, I am sure there will be additional changes to our governmental systems. It’s all happening so quickly, but that’s the point, isn’t it? Anyway, whether you agree with the current administration or not, the stories I’m sharing are happening to real people and their working dogs.

All images in this post are courtesy of London and Abby.

Abby and London are dedicated to their work and their dogs. This young couple has devoted their professional lives to dogs. To talk to them is like talking to “my people”. They are enthusiastic, funny, energetic and super smart about all things dog.

They married in 2021, with a family vision that “human health and the economy are directly tied into the health of the environment”. Along with being dedicated to the environment, they are also dedicated stewards of their 3 dogs Cricket, Cosmo and Hugo.

Hugo is a 6-year-old German Shepherd who was supposed to be a Guide Dog, but didn’t pass the hip certification test. (photo on left)

Cricket is a 5-year-old (best guess) Border Collie who started her career as a scent detection dog with London. (center photo)

Cosmo is a 4-year-old (best guess) Black Labrador who just loves to be included in any activity. (photo on right)

All of the dogs have experience in field work, from wind farm projects, to carnivore scat detection to working in the forest. They all love to work but each dog seems to have a special interest and a specific assignment they seem to excel at.

Hugo, being a German Shepherd seems to love Carnivore Projects. He is tasked with finding large carnivore scat deep in the forest. With his head to the forest floor and his nose taking in all of the information the forest has to offer, Hugo always finds what he is looking for. It could be wolf scat, bear scat, coyote scat, bobcat scat, etc. It depends on the assignment he was given. Once he finds his quarry, he sits down and waits for either London or Abby to retrieve it….properly. It seems that Hugo thinks he is to oversee the collection of the scat to make sure it’s done correctly. He gave himself this assignment and only when the scat has been collected….properly….will he break his alert (which is “sit”) to get his reward. While I haven’t seen him in action yet, I am looking forward to witnessing this process in person and photographing Hugo’s intense gaze.

Cricket is a rock star in all areas of scent detection. She has worked in the forests and on wind farms. It’s really important to understand the difference between searching in the forest and searching a wind farm. In the forest, the dog follows the scent. She finds the scent cone and works her way to the center. On a wind farm, the search is laid out in a grid pattern and she has to work the grid, section by section. The fact that she excels at both is a little amazing. Being a Border Collie, she loves to work, so, for her, it doesn’t matter what the job is, she just wants to do it. (I get that!)

Cosmo loves working as well and just wants to please his human. He’s still pretty new to the conservation scent detection industry, but he is learning quickly and seems to love it all. He’s a black lab. C’mon. He is just happy to be out working with his person.

London has been working on wind farms since 2021. He was a Rogue Dog Bounder and spent 2 seasons in the back woods working on a carnivore scat project with Cricket. London was brought up in Ohio and has always had a love for wildlife. He also has an obsession and love for “spicy” dogs. You know, the ones who think they are smarter than you? London loves the dogs whose intelligent disobedience makes him think about how he interacts with dogs.

Abby is also from Ohio….as a matter of fact, this dynamic duo went to elementary school together, but didn’t notice each other until after high school. (Their love story is for another post, perhaps.) Abby has always loved dogs, and starting working for a veterinarian at as soon as she possibly could. She has always believed that she could be involved in vet medicine as well as scent detection, even though she wasn’t sure what that looked like. As she began her career, she met Jennifer and Heath from Rogue Detection Teams. Jennifer and Heath taught Abby how to be an amazing Bounder and how to work with the dogs. She absorbed every detail that they taught her and a plan began to emerge for her. A plan on how to utilize scent detection in the veterinary medicine field. It’s a genius idea, but it’s not mine to tell, so I’ll leave it at that.

Abby and London have been working in the K9 conservation field for several years now and it hasn’t been easy. While there is usually an abundance of work available, due to the recent government funding cuts along with a hiring freeze among most of the wind farms, they are unsure of their assignments for the summer. They have lost at least 2 contacts that they were counting on for summer work.

While I was chatting with Abby and London one chilly spring day, Abby found out that she had been accepted to Colorado State University where she is planning on continuing to study veterinary medicine. I was so excited for her when she found out! But, it only took a few moments for her utter joy to turn into worry. Read her own words from her post on Instagram.

Happy to say I got accepted into Colorado State University to take some undergraduate-level courses this fall as the next step in a multi-year sniffer dog plot London and I have been cooking up for a while.

I was born in Denver but my family moved back to Ohio while I was still an infant. When I was in kindergarten my parents & I visited Colorado again and my child self became infatuated with the idea of moving to Colorado and joining CSU’s zoology program. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I changed my mind to my in-state option Ohio State for many practical reasons.

25 years later, I finally got the acceptance notification my child self had worked so earnestly towards.

But the victory feels hollow.

Given how fast the world is changing, I can’t trust that the university will still be universitying as planned come August. I wasn’t going to post about this at all because I’m so fretful about all the potential freshly-constructed roadblocks outside of my control.

But then I think about my elementary-aged self putting together a little binder of accomplishments for my future college application. Child and later adolescent me was so in love with education that it quite literally powered me through a brain tumor.

This acceptance is an accomplishment 25 years in the making. I owe it to my past, current, and future self to celebrate whatever there is to celebrate. 🐏

It doesn’t stop there, however. Abby and London both have second jobs that they work so they can pay their bills and put food on the table. Going out into the field and working in K9 Conservation with the dogs happens during the late spring - early fall months when the wildlife is most active. During the winter, they work on finding assignments for the following year while working “regular” jobs. That’s alot.

Now, take their dogs into consideration. These are working dogs who love to work…need to work. The dogs know when they aren’t working and, as London says, you can’t re-create hours in the day. So what is a working dog to do?

Abby and London are intentional about getting the dogs out and trying to replicate their working environment. Even though it’s not the same as spending weeks in the forest or a wind farm, it still gives the dogs the opportunity to use their skills.

For the dogs, the work must go on.

How can YOU help?

Contact your local legislators and add your two cents.

https://www.senate.gov/senators/index.htm

https://www.house.gov/representatives

If you are unconcerned about the humanity part of these stories, I ask you to consider the dogs and how this will affect them. Without their humans having jobs, neither do the dogs. Do you know what happens to working dogs who don’t have a job? They become destructive and begin having behavioral issues that can lead to a dire outcome. I’m trying to prevent that from happening by telling their stories. I hope it moves you to action.

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You can follow Abby on Instagram .instagram.com/science_sniffers

You can follow London on Instagram instagram.com/finditcricket