Pit-Track Attends Rhino Revolution K9 Demonstration

On the morning of Saturday 14 October 2023 we attended the Rhino Revolution Wild Talks Series at the Unleashed Dog Park just outside of Hoedspruit. Rhino Revolution is a South African organisation “committed to protecting iconic black and white rhino from the barbaric illegal wildlife trade”. They are “passionate about turning the tide and are proud to partner with, and support, highly skilled wildlife professionals, ethical NGOs, global volunteers and a range of stakeholders to deliver maximum impact”.

Our Directors Carl Thornton and Drew Abrahamson attended with K9 Handler Kyle. They were joined by our anti-poaching K9s Balloo, Rex and Torro, who performed exceptionally well. Our photographer and videographer Keegan Nicol was on hand to capture the event.

Pit-Track & Rhino Revolution Teams © Rhino Revolution

We were joined by guests of Rhino Revolution and community members from the Hoedspruit area. It was a great opportunity for the public to see our K9s in action and learn more about our work and K9 training.

Our Sable Shepherds Torro and Rex undertook open field searches, pipe searches and baggage searches, and Belgian Malinois Balloo did bite work demonstrations. K9 Rex was the crowd pleaser entertaining everyone in his usual style.

Rex doing pipe searches with Carl © Keegan Nicol

The team at Rhino Revolution commented that, “Carl and the Pit-Track team showed us just how fundamental the impact of a well-trained K9 unit is in our efforts to protect rhinos”. They continued, “after taking us through some impressive scent detection exercises the dogs left the humans in the dust (quite literally) as Carl and the team showed how the dogs are trained in subject apprehension as well. It was truly incredible to see how the unit is trained to show aggression only in the most specific of circumstances and on command will revert to a fully social dog!”

We send a huge thank you to the Rhino Revolution team for their ongoing efforts in rhino and wildlife conservation, and for hosting us at this event, which assisted to raise awareness about anti-poaching and the use of K9s in the field, and helped to provide us with funds towards our work. Thanks also to everyone who attended. We had a great time!