In the Year 2000 Craig was approached by the airport corporation for a domestic and international airport. They wanted to know if he felt he could train a dog to do a task known as bird strike mitigation utilising a dogs natural hunting abilities to make them vacate the airport environment.

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Craig and Tracey had serious meetings and nothing came of it for many years, then to his great surprise he was contracted to do the 1st approved bird strike dog in the country. By this time there was now just a few dogs working throughout the world doing this extremely important Job. Should we have done this from the 1st contact it would have been the 1st bird strike dog in the world but it was not to be so we settled for 1st in Australia.

 

How this works is birds love certain habitats and unfortunately most airports are in areas that are or adjoin these habitats, so birds like most other animals can and do learn and should you provide a reason to leave the area at early morning you can form some conditioning so they only return late in the evening. It is also so much better to have conditioned resident birds that are more compliant and predictable than new individuals whom dont vacate or regularly revisit at peak times.

 

The dog is trained to do predatory behaviours towards the birds which drives them off and provides aircraft and passenger safety. The dogs can be sent or called off part way through a chase, giving even safety to the offending birds. This dog has been used in several states and even at airforce bases and has given great service for over 5 years and had 3 different handlers.