This week we take a departure on reporting solely on amphibians by focusing on both frogs and dogs! Specifically, the role that dogs can play as frog detectors. Dogs have an incredible sense of smell, with olfactory epithelia that are over 50x the area of those of humans, and are capable of tracking animals and distinguishing between species by smell alone. Gilbert et al (2024) evaluated the effectiveness of conservation detection dogs in finding Baw Baw frogs (Philoria frosti) in the wild. The Baw Baw frog is critically endangered and endemic to the Mount Baw Baw plateau in Australia. The researchers teamed up with professional dog trainers and two border collies, named Rubble and Uda, who had done previous conservation detection work. The dogs were trained to identify ventilated PVC pipes that contained either swabs of Baw Baw frogs or live Baw Baw frogs. They signaled detection of P. frosti scent by tapping their noses to the correct containers, and were rewarded with bits of dry beef. Rubble and Uda were then brought to the Mt Baw Baw plateau to detect frogs in situ. Baw Baw male frogs call from burrows that are up to 1m deep, and while the dogs both signaled detection of scent on the first day of searching, frogs were not seen or heard at those locations. On the second day, the dogs independently found the same three male frogs, whose presence in their burrows was confirmed by their calls. Rubble and Uda’s success demonstrates that dogs may be useful in amphibian conservation work, helping researchers find rare amphibians in complex, wild environments. It would seem herpetologists have a new ally in our dogged quest to conserve frogs.

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