The Belgian sheepherder's name is Pepin. He's no hunting dog or sporting breed out for fun. He's a working dog, one of a few dozen highly trained, toy-crazed canines that are changing the way wildlife biologists such as Parker figure out what's lurking in the woods.
These dogs of various breeds don't rely on their eyes, the way puny-nosed humans do, to try to make sense of the world. They are trained to use their pronounced noses and superior sense of smell to canvass the landscape for animals, animal scat, rare plants and invasive weeds that too easily elude human discovery.
These elite detection dogs have sniffed out invasive, predatory snails in Hawaii and tree snakes in the jungles of Guam. They've climbed the mountains of Central Asia for telltale signs of snow leopards, hunted for nearly extinct rhinos in Vietnam, padded through Kenya in pursuit of cheetahs, and tracked moon bears in China.
