While it’s common knowledge that there are service dogs, dogs on the police force and dogs in the military, one dog, a former stray named Tucker, has a job that you wouldn’t expect. The New York Times recently featured this guy because he is practically a doggie marine biologist. Tucker helps track orca by catching the scent of their scat (their feces) up to a mile away.(dog walking services nyc)

Dog Helps

You would think that in order to this, Tucker would need to be in the water, but in fact, he actually hates to swim! His process takes place on a boat. He uses his sense of smell, which as noted by Chicago Now, is approximately 10,000 times better than ours, to sniff out the scat in the water. This helps marine biologists track and monitor the group of orcas that are often in the San Juans. These whales have been followed and studied by scientists, genotyped and tracked for decades.

When Tucker catches a scent, he indicates the direction of the smell with cues that his handlers have had to learn like a twitch of an ear or a long stare. If he finds no scent, he lies down and puts his head between his hands. When he successfully does his job he gets rewarded with his favorite orange ball.

By tracking the scat, scientists are able understand where orcas spend their time based on a variety of chemicals within the scat that are specific to certain areas. All of this research is helping scientists protect the species from the issues they face today.

So, Tucker, like many dogs has a job, but his is totally unique and amazing in it’s own way. He is single-handedly (or paw-dedly?) helping to protect killer whales.

Source: The New York Times, Chicago Now, Images via Matthew Ryan/NYT