Starre Julia Vartan

What a joy to cover this incredible research from the University of Washington and Conservation Canines for CNN.

I love dogs, I grew up with them, and I even run walk and run them today as part of my work as a dog-walker on the island where I live. The canines who sniff out orca poop are incredibly trained by experts and these were some incredibly fun interviews. Did you know these dogs that do this specialized work are all rescues?

“It takes a special dog to excel at this work. Wasser described looking for dogs that have a “extreme” drive to play with a ball — to the extent they will ignore food or treats. (The dogs are trained using reward-based training, and the ball is the ultimate reward.) The CK9 team finds these dogs at animal shelters where they might be scheduled for euthanasia.”