Dogs trained to guard goats and sheep against cheetahs in Namibia are being felled at an alarming rate by venomous snakes - so conservationists are piloting a new training method to teach the dogs to avoid them.
By protecting livestock from attacks, dogs can play a crucial role in reducing conflict between farmers and endangered predators.
But Anatolian and Kangal shepherd dogs, ancient breeds native to Turkey and now deployed to guard farms in Namibia, are so devoted to their herds that they'll naturally confront any snake that approaches - and pay for it with their lives.
"They have no fear of anything and so they will go directly up to snakes," says Calum O'Flaherty, who manages the livestock guarding dog programme at the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF).
"They will protect against anything they feel is a threat to their herd."
Since the CCF started training dogs in Namibia 30 years ago and placing them on hundreds of farms as a deterrent to carnivores like lions, cheetahs, leopards and jackals, 84 dogs have been killed by the bites of snakes - mostly puff adders, zebra cobras and black mambas.
More than 50 of the dogs have been killed in the past five years alone.
Frozen snakes
In response, the group has developed pioneering snake aversion lessons that involve familiarising the dogs with the sight and smell of snakes in a controlled environment using - among other props - frozen snakes.
At its conservation centre in Otjiwarongo, central Namibia, the dead snakes, collected from roadkill sites and preserved at the centre's genetic biobank, are placed in trenches dug inside a training pen. The inside of the pen resembles the dogs' typical working environment, complete with animal skulls, rocks and fallen trees.
Since the shepherd dogs are distributed to farmers in the Otjozondjupa region of Namibia at 11 weeks, when they're still young enough to bond with the herds of goat and sheep they will be protecting, snake avoidance classes begin when the CCF puppies are just seven weeks old.
Once inside the training pen, the puppies are monitored by their trainers who remain concealed inside a hide.
They are punished if they try to approach or play with the snake, though only gentle deterrents are used: water sprayed from a hose or a loud blast issued from a vuvuzela trumpet.
"We did want the puppies to see the snake, but we didn't want them to go and approach it, try and play with it, try and bite it, because that's when obviously the [live] snake bites back," O'Flaherty explains.
Sight and smell
Toy snakes are also used during training sessions, but using the dead snakes helps the dogs get used to something else: the smell of a potentially deadly reptile.
Getting used to the sight of them is vital, too. The murkily coloured, slow-moving puff adder has no scent at all.
"The dogs don't notice that [snake] until they're right on top of it," says O'Flaherty. "So we needed to do a bit of [the training] based on sight, which is [another reason] why we needed to use the frozen snakes."
The training seems to work: at one recent session, only one of the five puppies tried a second time to approach a snake and received the second level of punishment, the vuvuzela blast.
The dogs didn't get to the third stage: "the boogeyman", which is when O'Flaherty will emerge covered by a towel, making a large frightening shape and shouting.
The puppies who underwent the training have now been sent out to farms around Otjiwarongo. It's hoped their lessons will pay off.
Avoiding snakes isn't easy for the Anatolian and Kangal breeds, O'Flaherty explains. They are inquisitive, unafraid, and will always put themselves between their herd and a perceived threat.
When the team places dogs with farmers, for instance, it has to ensure there aren't any major roads nearby in case the dogs think cars are a threat and run up to them.
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Protecting livestock, saving cheetahs
The CCF is now working to raise funds to train a new litter of puppies that is about to be born at its conservation centre.
The group also hopes to use some of those funds to purchase snake antivenom as a back-up in case some of the dogs still get bitten, though there is no effective treatment available for the zebra cobra - something that O'Flaherty knows only too well.
In 2021 Leeu, an Anatolian who had retired from herd protection duties, died from the bite of a zebra cobra that had entered O'Flaherty's yard while he was away.
"Being an Anatolian he went straight up to it," O'Flaherty says.
Leeu's untimely death underscores the need to train other shepherd dogs to avoid dangerous snakes, not least so that they can continue their work defending farmers' herds from predators - and cheetahs from retaliatory attacks.
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There are only an estimated 7,100 cheetahs left in Africa; around 1,800 of those are estimated to live in Namibia.
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But because the animals face stiff competition from lions and leopards in protected areas, around 90 percent of Namibia's cheetahs live on farmland. And, because they hunt by day and are the most commonly seen predator, farmers often blame them for livestock killed by other carnivores such as leopards and jackals.
"That is why they get this bad reputation, but the dog programme is making that difference," says O'Flaherty.
CCF says livestock losses have been reduced by over 90 percent in areas where its dogs are being used.
"The team is still learning," O'Flaherty says. It is improving "how we can help our animals, how we can help our farmers and then, overall, how we can save the cheetah."
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