Once wandering the suburbs with no collar and no clear future, the dog now named Leo is part of a specialist conservation team searching for traces of koalas across central Queensland’s forests and farmland. His story shows how an unwanted pet can become a frontline ally for threatened species.
From shelter dog to conservation recruit
Leo’s life changed at six months old when a ranger found him roaming alone. He was taken to a local shelter, another energetic black-and-white youngster in a country already overflowing with working-breed crosses that need homes.
At roughly the same time, veterinary nurse and conservation advocate Jacqui Summers was looking for a new detection dog. She needed a companion with stamina, curiosity, and a near-obsessive love for play — exactly the type of dog that often ends up bored and unwanted in suburban backyards.
When Jacqui met Leo, his focus and drive stood out. He homed in on toys, ignored distractions, and bounced back quickly from new or strange situations. Those traits made him a handful as a pet, but ideal for a canine job that means hours of searching in heat, dust and tall grass.
Leo moved from concrete kennel runs to wide bushland, becoming a working dog with a purpose: help researchers find koalas.
Adopted from the shelter, Leo joined Jacqui’s detection dog team, Holy Scat, alongside two experienced dogs, Artemis and Skye. The trio now forms the only dedicated conservation dog unit in Queensland focused on koala work.
The team behind “holy scat”
Holy Scat operates with a simple idea at its core: to protect wildlife, you first need to know where it is. In heavily modified landscapes, that can be much harder than it sounds. Koalas often live in scattered tree patches, move at night, and stay high in the canopy.
Instead of searching for the animals themselves, Jacqui’s dogs are trained to find what they leave behind: droppings, or scat. For koalas, these small, pellet-like droppings can be almost invisible on the forest floor.
By focusing on scent, the dogs can locate scat in places where humans would probably walk straight past. That allows researchers to map koala presence across large areas and track changes over time.
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Working dogs like Leo turn a tedious needle-in-a-haystack search into a focused mission guided by their nose.
Queensland’s first dedicated koala detection unit
While detection dogs are already used in several Australian states, Queensland has been slower to adopt them. That is starting to shift. Holy Scat now partners with CQUniversity and the national koala monitoring program to survey central Queensland, an area where koalas are under pressure from land clearing, heatwaves and disease.
For researchers, having a trained dog team on site can change the scale of what is possible during short field trips. Instead of sampling a small number of trees, they can cover entire paddocks, creek lines and fragmented bush corridors.
- Dogs detect koala scat hidden under leaf litter and grass.
- Scientists confirm the scat and record GPS locations.
- Data feeds into national databases tracking koala populations.
- Results guide habitat protection, corridors and future surveys.
How a nose beats satellite images
Koala research today combines high-tech monitoring with old-fashioned fieldwork. Drones, acoustic recorders and satellite imagery help locate habitat and potential koala hotspots. Yet all those methods still need ground truth: proof that koalas actually use a site.
This is where Leo and his teammates come in. Trained through repetition and rewards, they learn to indicate the scent of koala scat and ignore other wildlife droppings.
In thick grass, tangled leaf litter and uneven ground, a koala dropping can vanish from human sight long before the scent fades for a trained dog.
Researchers describe the difference in effort as dramatic. A human surveyor might spend an hour combing a small patch, bending repeatedly, eyes locked on the ground. A dog watching the wind can sweep the same patch far more quickly, homing in on faint odours that carry between trees.
What training a conservation dog looks like
Leo’s training started with simple scent games. Trainers paired the smell of koala scat with his favourite toy or food. When he identified the right container or spot, he got an immediate reward. Over time, the puzzles grew more complex, shifting from controlled indoor setups to outdoor bushland.
By the time a dog is field-ready, they must:
| Skill | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Scent focus | Ignore other wildlife and livestock smells to lock onto koala scat. |
| Stamina | Work for hours in heat or drizzle without losing enthusiasm. |
| Clear signals | Show a consistent behaviour, such as sitting or pawing, at the find. |
| Obedience | Respond instantly to recall and stop commands near cliffs, roads or stock. |
The dogs wear GPS collars and cooling vests when needed. Regular breaks and health checks keep them safe. Jacqui’s background as a vet nurse adds another layer of oversight, ensuring joints, paws and hydration are closely monitored.
Why koala poop matters for policy
Koalas face multiple threats in Queensland, from habitat loss and vehicle strikes to chlamydia infections that can cause infertility and blindness. Governments and landholders need reliable data to make decisions on logging limits, housing developments and restoration projects.
Scat surveys answer basic questions: Are koalas present? How widely are they spread? Are populations shrinking or stabilising? Detection dogs allow those answers to arrive faster and with greater confidence, which can influence where to prioritise limited conservation funding.
Each tiny pile of scat logged by Leo’s team becomes another data point in national models predicting the future of koala populations.
When patterns show a sharp drop in detections in a particular region, that can trigger closer investigation into disease outbreaks, heat stress events or recent land clearing.
Rescue dogs as conservation partners
Leo’s story also highlights a growing trend: drawing future working dogs from rescue centres instead of purpose-bred litters. High-energy crosses like border collies, kelpies and cattle dogs can struggle in urban homes, yet shine in search work.
For shelters, partnerships with detection programs create an extra pathway for dogs that might otherwise face years of waiting for the “right” adopter. For conservation groups, it offers a steady pool of potential recruits without encouraging more large-scale breeding.
This model depends on careful screening. Not every rescue dog suits fieldwork. Some dislike loud noises, others are anxious around strangers or livestock. Trainers look for a blend of curiosity, toy drive and resilience rather than perfection.
What “scat” means and why scientists chase it
The word “scat” simply refers to animal droppings used for scientific study. For many species, scat is easier and less stressful to collect than blood or tissue samples. From a single pellet, researchers can extract DNA, hormones and diet clues.
For koalas, scat analysis can reveal:
- Which individual or family group used an area.
- Signs of disease such as chlamydia.
- Diet quality based on leaf fragments and chemical markers.
- Exposure to environmental contaminants like pesticides.
Detection dogs act as mobile sampling units. Instead of trapping or tagging koalas, which carries stress and risk, teams can work from the ground with minimal disturbance. That approach suits sensitive areas and adds fewer complications for ethics approvals.
Where this approach could head next
The success of Leo and similar dogs raises several possibilities. Other threatened species in Australia, from gliders to quolls, also leave distinctive scat. Some programs already train dogs to locate rare reptiles, invasive plants or even fungal diseases in trees.
In a future where extreme heat and fire events strain wildlife, rapid surveys powered by trained dogs could help locate survivors and prioritise rescue or habitat support. Conservation planners are already testing mixed teams where one dog searches for koala scat in the morning and invasive predators like foxes in the afternoon.
For anyone living near koala habitat, Leo’s story offers a practical angle too. Reporting sightings of wild koalas, participating in community tree-planting days, and supporting local koala care groups all feed into the same goal as the detection teams: keep enough healthy trees and connected habitat for the animals Leo now works so hard to find.
And for shelters, his journey from unwanted stray to skilled wildlife worker is a reminder that behind that restless energy in the kennel run, there may be a specialist nose just waiting for a job that finally makes sense.