SA's first dog graduate earns Masters degree
For the first time in South Africa, sheepdog and her owner from Bloemfontein have received Masters' degrees from the North West University's Potchefstroom campus during graduation yesterday.
Esté Matthew says she trained two-year-old 'Jessie' to detect the scent of a frog below ground for research and conservation purposes as part of her Masters degree project in Zoology.
"I saw the idea from a talk someone presented at the university about sniffer dogs being used for a variety of things. I consulted with professional sniffer dog trainers and they showed me the methods of how to train a dog for scent detection.
"It took about two weeks to train Jesse initially then you have to add a lot of disturbances and train under a different environment," she said.
Esté has been employed by the Endangered Wildlife Trust in the Karoo.
She says Jessie's nose will help a programme for endangered amphibians.
Esté Matthew with her research partner, Jessie, and supervisor, Profesor Ché Weldon after she received an MSc in Zoology.
(Photos supplied by North West University)