Taylor is a dog who has been actively helping firefighting crews locate koalas caught in areas affected by wildfire.
Taylor is a Springer Spaniel breed dog who’s been trained to locate koalas from the smell of their poop. The talented dog can trace them from as far as 125m away.
The heroic dog has been spending her days scanning fire-affected areas of the woods on the mid-north coast of NSW to find out any Koalas lost in the fire.
Taylor has so far saved the lives of eight koalas who lost their natural habitat to the uncontrollable fire.
According to her trainer, Ryan Tate, the four-year-old Springer Spaniel is his ‘million-dollar dog’ and one of the brightest and most talented beings he has ever worked with.
The exalted Springer Spaniel is a specialist in locating quolls, koalas, rabbits, and cats and offers invaluable assistance to the rescue teams in finding the animals lost in the disasters like flood and wildfire.
Taylor and her trainer helped locate lost koalas on the periphery of extensive forest fires, the areas known to be the habitat of these animals.
“They included some of the most genetically diverse and healthy Koala populations in the world,” Tate said, adding that the havoc created by the wildfire brought “tears to his eyes.”
Taylor accurately traced koalas on three different occasions including one where a mom was trapped with her son Joey.
The koalas traced by Taylor were badly injured by the fire which also eliminated their natural habitats.
Tate and Taylor waited for backup to arrive and took the poor animals back to a hospital to provide them with the much needed medical attention.
There were some cases where Taylor traced the animals’ poo in the right direction but there was a dead end with no further clue.
In such cases, koala locating experts scan the area from the top to look for the koalas up in the trees, Tate said on his Instagram page.
“It is a lot like solving a complex puzzle and we are very privileged to be a small part of rescuing survivors,” he wrote.
Tate told in an earlier Instagram post that Taylor had been in training since she was just eight months of age and has a passion for what she does.
“She’s an absolute trouble maker at home, revs up all the other dogs and steals their toys,” Tate told Australian Dog Lover.
“She is our best dog in the field and our biggest pain in the arse at home.”
Taylor and her siblings have parents who were “safe and hardworking dogs, usually field trial champions or professional detection dogs.”
Tate explained that this breed of dogs has been trained to hunt for a long time, so it has developed an instinct to chase and locate rather than attack and kill.
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