A Touch of Wanderlust: Who let the dogs out?

As briefly mentioned in my previous blog entry, the Conservancy has a small team of poacher-sniffing dogs and their ranger handlers. The anti-poaching unit is still in its early days and was only started in 2009, so the dog trainers, Linda and John of the Canine Training Academy, still come to the Mara fairly often to check on the dogs and keep up with the training. Asuka, the Conservancy veterinarian, is also very involved with the dog training and is in charge of the training whenever Linda and John are back in the States.

Linda made a trip here just last month, and while she was here the dogs and their handlers would go on training runs pretty much every day. To do a training run, one of the rangers lays a scent track while carrying around a GPS tracker. The track is recorded on a little handheld GPS unit, and then left to sit for a while (the longer the track is allowed to settle, the more challenging for the dog). Then the dog is set on the track, together with the handler and the tracker who is holding the GPS. The tracker has to run with the dog too, because they're in charge of seeing how close the dog is to the actual trail at any given time.

Linda and Asuka were kind enough to invite me to one of these training sessions, and I was really excited to join in! Yeah I'm out exploring the Mara every day, but my job puts me in the car for all that time. For the dog training, you get to run through the Mara with the dogs and not sit on your ass!

Linda and Asuka picked me up from camp one morning and we headed out to the Ngiro-Are ranger outpost (pronounced something like "Ing-geh-rah-ray") close to the Kenya-Tanzania border, where the anti-poacher unit is stationed. Linda and Asuka decided to take two of the dogs out, Murani and Anna (Murani means "warrior"), and three of the handlers.

For our first run, Linda wanted to start Anna out on an easy run. Anna is a new dog, Linda brought her from the States last month and she's still adjusting to being here in the Mara. Linda had one of the rangers lay the track, a little over 1.5 kilometers across a pretty flat plain. Then we set Anna on the track. Now, 1.5 kilometers isn't bad. I can run that far at a leisurely pace. Unfortunately, none of us expected just how well Anna would perform that day. She was completely on her game, and a "nice easy run" turned into a frantic 1.5 kilometer SPRINT, avoiding holes, dodging rocky patches, yikes! And trust me, when you're tearing through the Mara on foot, you really don't want to be the straggler lagging behind the rest of the group...

We got to the end and I couldn't talk, I was so out of breath. I am obviously NOT built to be a runner. I admit this freely.

We did a total of 4 runs that morning, two per dog. I joined in for the first 3 runs, but after that the boots I had borrowed from Linda had rubbed my feet raw (half a size too small, but the lesser of two evils since I'd rather not break an ankle on the unpredictable terrain). By the time we were ready to do the 4th run, I was hobbling around pathetically and trying not to pop my damn blisters. Ouch! So I changed into my sneakers, waited in the car and drove over to them after Murani completed his run so they wouldn't have to walk all the way back to the car.

I have to say though, that was an absolute ridiculous amount of fun, and totally worth the blisters. Hopefully I'll get to do it again sometime soon, and in the meantime I might just have to run circles around camp to prepare for it.

Okay, storytime is over and now you get pictures:

Ngiro-Are, the ranger outpost. You can't see in this picture, but there are bullet-holes in the gate from when poachers/bandits/etc. have attacked the outpost.