Brief history

Starting off as a kennel assistant in a renowned specialist detection dog company, Rachael soon progressed to training and handling within the company. 

She was fortunate enough to train and handle a variety of dogs of varying temperaments and in a multitude of disciplines, including explosives, tobacco, cash, quarantine, smuggled animals and conservation. Exposure to such a wide array of disciplines gave her an insight and experience to truly understand detection dogs.

During this time, she was one of only two individuals (the other being Aran Clyne) who trained Rocky, 'the world's first scientifically proven Great Crested Newt detection dog'. 

Rocky was then quickly followed by Arnie, who went through the same rigorous training and testing.

"This area of work is definitely a team effort. Dogs may show subtle changes in behaviour that may not be noticeable to an inexperienced handler, as opposed to a clear indication. This is why it is important to be in tune with your dogs... there will always be something new to learn."

You are a team.

Paws For Conservation is extremely experienced in the field of dog handling and detection. Over the years Rachael, alongside Aran, have had the pleasure of training, producing and handling dogs to an extremely high standard, including:-  

• World's first ever scientifically proven Great Crested Newt detection dogs:- Rocky and Arnie

• Multiple operational bat and bird carcass detection dogs

• Dormouse detection dogs

• Water vole detection dogs

• Passive and proactive search dogs produced for Hong Kong customs:- smuggled meat and live animals

• Pine Martin scat detection dogs

• Ivory and Pangolin scales detection dogs

• Tobacco and Cash detection dogs

• Explosive detection dogs

• Drug detection dogs

• Medical detection dogs

Whilst Paws for Conservation is still in its infancy, our first three bat carcass seasons saw us carry out in excess of 2000 surveys. Our experience of over 18 years combined makes us one of the most experienced within this field for operational work and training.