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I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

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He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

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Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

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In after Baud. Damn.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

White supremacy is terrorism.

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It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

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Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

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Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Respite Open Thread: Get Paid To Sniff for Poop!… *

Respite Open Thread: Get Paid To Sniff for Poop!… *

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Of course not every dog is fit or focused enough, but this sounds like the canine equivalent of ‘grow up to be a paleontologist who is *also* a firefighter’.

From the Washington Post, “Once-abandoned dogs are now trained to sniff out environmental clues” [Unpaywalled gift link]:

The dogs were stranded on the streets or sitting in shelters, dropped off by owners who couldn’t handle the pups’ strong will and frenetic energy. Their temperaments were too volatile.

One of them, Tigee, was seized by animal control for being too aggressive. The 7-year-old shepherd mix spent several weeks in isolation in a four-foot kennel in Virginia.

But Tigee was smart and had an intense attachment to his toys, so he was a perfect fit to be a “conservation canine” — a dog trained to sniff out endangered species or other important environmental clues.

In 2017, Tigee was rescued by Working Dogs for Conservation (WD4C), a conservation detection dog organization based in Turah, Mont. Tigee now lives in Zambia, where he uses his strong drive — and big black snout — to collect data in South Luangwa National Park and protect the region’s wildlife, including pangolins, a scaly-skinned mammal that is a threatened species.

After a successful session collecting data, he is rewarded with toys and treats…

Tobias, a 9-year-old Labrador retriever, was found wandering around alone in Helena, Mont., in 2016.

He had a hyper personality, a trait Coppolillo said often makes dogs unappealing as family pets. Instead, he was taken in by WD4C and now spends his days sniffing out invasive zebra and quagga mussels in Montana’s Glacier National Park. After a search, he also gets a toy and treats.

Tobias’s co-worker Zoey, another 7-year-old shepherd mix, was a stray dog on the streets of Texas. She was rescued in 2017, and since then she’s been using her stellar sniffing skills to find wild cats in Missoula, Mont., and conduct ecological monitoring — locating and safeguarding threatened and endangered species of plants and animals…

WD4C dogs have different duties, but their roles in each are much the same, in that they focus on ecological monitoring. Their job is mostly snout-centric.

They are trained to target certain odors — and alert their human handlers when they’ve found them…

The target odor, in most cases, is feces.

Fecal matter is extremely valuable to conservationists, as it offers insights into an animal’s pedigree, what they are related to and where they came from. It can also shed light on an animal’s hormone levels and dietary patterns, as well as toxins in their bodies.

“The amount of information you can get from scat is always increasing because of fancier labs,” Coppolillo said…

*Insert your own Peter Baker / CNN / Meet the Press joke here

Reader Interactions

28Comments

  6. 6.

    Jackie

    This fits the Good News qualification!

    Democrat Lindsay Powell, a nonprofit worker and former staffer for the city of Pittsburgh, won a special election Tuesday and gave her party control of the state House of Representatives, The Associated Press projected.
    Powell triumphed in a Democratic-leaning district in Allegheny County vacated by former state Rep. Sara Innamorato. Innamorato left office to run for Allegheny County executive and will be theDemocratic nominee for that office in the November general election.

    Powell’s victory was expected due to the blue hue of the open district, but it’s still important because it tips the balance of power in the statehouse’s lower chamber back to Democrats, who will hold 102 seats after she is seated, compared to Republicans’ 101 seats.
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/democrats-retake-razor-thin-majority-pennsylvania-state-house-rcna105803

  8. 8.

    Jeffro

    If you like it, send the reporter a note!  (I always try to do that with well-done educational and political stories)

    ETA: and because this is a respite thread, I just deleted much glee over the House GOP’s complete shitshow…and the fact that it was just about named as such…in the same Post

    So, some other time.  Go awesome pups!

  9. 9.

    Alison Rose

    Hey, way to go Pennsylvania jackals!

    Democrats kept control of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Tuesday after winning an open seat in a special election in the Pittsburgh area.

    The state’s lower chamber had been split 101-101 between Democrats and Republicans since July, when former Representative Sara Innamorato, a Democrat, stepped down from her seat representing the 21st House District to run for Allegheny County executive.

    And while Republicans had hoped for an upset in Ms. Innamorato’s former district, which includes part of Pittsburgh and its northern suburbs, The Associated Press projected that Lindsay Powell, a Democrat who has strong ties to party leaders in Washington — including Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader — had defeated Erin Connolly Autenreith, a Republican who is the chairwoman of a local party committee.

    ETA beaten to the punch by Jackie :D

  17. 17.

    Ken

    Because my brain works that way, I immediately imagined the dog proudly presenting its horrified human with the (now even more) endangered animal that it tracked down and caught.

  19. 19.

    mrmoshpotato

    Of course not every dog is fit or focused enough, but this sounds like the canine equivalent of ‘grow up to be a paleontologist who is *also* a firefighter’.

    *Crying*

    Leave firefighting paleontologists alone!

  20. 20.

    Jackie

    More good news! TIFG called Peter Thiel, and Thiel basically told him Nope! 😂

    Puck: “The call might have begun friendly enough, but it was pretty contentious by the end, according to three people with knowledge of the conversation. Trump wanted to see Thiel do more for him, just like the billionaire had in 2016, when Thiel spent millions on his behalf and spoke at the Republican National Convention. But Thiel, who has taken a step back from politics since 2022, expressed his desire to not be ‘at the center of the hurricane’ this time around. Thiel had taken plenty of flak during the midterms, and he was seeking to de-escalate his political involvement.”

    “Trump, of course, demands loyalty, and he feels like Thiel sort of owes him one (even though Vance has been good for Trump and endorsed him). So he is, unsurprisingly, fuming, feeling as though Thiel ‘screwed’ him after all Trump did for his homies during the midterms. And Trump, I’m told, let him know it.”

  23. 23.

    prostratedragon

    Whar Tigee picture?

    Would love to eavesdrop on Fenton and Patron comparing notes on their respective tasks.

  26. 26.

    Soprano2

    @Jackie: Goes with the thread last night about Democrats running for office everywhere. Eight years ago there was only one Democrat from my area in the state House; now there are 3. It’s slow but steady progress. Also see Dirt Road Democrats.

  27. 27.

    prostratedragon

    More good news:

    Democrat Lindsay Powell won her special election for the Pennsylvania State House in Allegheny County in a blowout performance. As of 8:15PM ET, Powell held a commanding lead with 82% of the vote.

    ETA: That flips the PA House.

  28. 28.

    Fester Addams

    @Ken:

    imagined the dog proudly presenting its horrified human with the (now even more) endangered animal that it tracked down and caught.

    ‘swhy they don’t use cats.

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