An interview with Frédéric Chappée, Technical Director, IFAW K9 Projects Operations

The following is the full extended interview, continuing from the November 2026 Insider Update

What does success look like while training a handler?

The relationship between the handler and the dog is the heart of every successful canine program.

A handler must learn many technical skills: canine behavior, scent theory, tracking, detection, reward systems, field tactics, safety, and animal welfare.

But the most important thing a handler must learn is how to listen to the dog. This may sound simple, but it is not. A dog does not speak. It communicates through movement, posture, rhythm, breathing, hesitation, excitement, tension, or a simple turn of the head. A good handler learns to read all of this. This may seem like a small detail, but it reflects something important about our work. We do not arrive in a country to impose a rigid external model. We adapt technical standards to local realities, local cultures, and local people. That is how programs become sustainable.

In the beginning, many handlers focus on controlling the dog. Over time, they understand that the real objective is not control, but partnership. The dog has access to information the human cannot perceive. The handler must learn to trust that information. You know a team is becoming truly effective when the handler can anticipate the dog’s reaction, understand a subtle movement of the tail, recognize a change in intensity, and react correctly during a mission.

In some of the places where we work, dogs are not naturally seen as companions. Sometimes they are considered tools. In other contexts, people may even be afraid of them. Before we can build a strong operational team, we have to change perceptions. That transformation is deeply moving.

I have seen handlers who were initially distant, uncomfortable, or even afraid of dogs gradually develop a genuine relationship with their canine partner. They begin to understand the dog, care for it, protect it, and eventually love it.

That is one of the quiet victories of this work. It does not always appear in statistics, but it changes everything.

A dog that is respected, understood, and well cared for will work better. A handler who loves and trusts his dog will become more attentive, more responsible, and more effective. Animal welfare and operational success are not separate objectives. They reinforce each other.

Does IFAW enforce any standards that the trainers must follow to work with the dogs?

IFAW places animal welfare at the center of its canine programs. We promote ethical training, reward-based methods, proper veterinary care, adapted working conditions, and long-term welfare planning.

For me, a conservation dog program is only successful if the dog is protected as seriously as the wildlife it helps to save.

What does a typical training session look like, and how does training differ for tracking poachers versus detecting live animals or wildlife products?

A training session always begins with a clear objective. We do not train to keep the dog busy. We train the team to prepare for real conservation challenges.

For a tracking dog, the goal is to follow human scent across terrain that may be hot, dry, humid, dense, or contaminated by many other odors. The dog may need to follow the trail of a suspected poacher, locate a person, or help rangers understand where someone entered or left a protected area.

For a detection dog, the work is different. The dog is trained to recognize and locate a specific target odor: ivory, pangolin scales, bushmeat, firearms, snares, biological samples, or even the scent of a live animal such as a koala.

In both cases, we gradually increase complexity. We start with simple exercises where the dog can succeed, then we add distance, age of scent, distractions, terrain difficulty, weather conditions, and operational realism.

What matters is not only that the dog finds the target in training. What matters is that the handler understands why the dog succeeds, why it fails, and how to help the team progress.

A well-trained conservation dog can achieve in a few hours what might take a team of people several days. That makes canine programs one of the most effective force multipliers available to conservation.

Bear, the koala sniffing dog, has recently retired. Once his successor is found, what will the training process involve?

Bear is a powerful example of what one dog can contribute to conservation.

Finding his successor is about finding the right individual: a dog with motivation, resilience, emotional stability, curiosity, physical ability, and the desire to work in complex environments.

Once selected, the dog will be gradually trained to recognize koala scents, search in different environments, locate scent sources, and communicate clearly with the handler. The work must progress step by step, from controlled exercises to real field conditions.

Koalas can be extremely difficult to locate. A trained dog can help find animals that humans may never see in time. That can mean the difference between an animal being found, treated, and released—or remaining invisible.

How do handlers decide when it is time for a dog to retire?

This is one of the most important responsibilities in a working dog program.

A dog may still want to work. A dog may still be capable of working. But our responsibility is to look beyond performance and ask a deeper question: what is best for the dog?

We consider age, health, physical condition, motivation, stress, recovery time, and quality of life. The decision should not be made only when a dog can no longer work. Ideally, it should be made early enough to protect the dog’s welfare and dignity.

IFAW is currently developing an internal strategy for the retirement of working conservation dogs. This is extremely important. Retirement cannot be an afterthought. It must be part of the program from the beginning. These dogs dedicate years of their lives to protecting wildlife. They deserve dignity, care, and security when their mission is over.

For me, how we retire our dogs says a lot about the values of a conservation program.

Was there a moment that confirmed this was the right work for you?

There have been many moments, but the strongest are not always the most spectacular.

When a dog helps locate illegal wildlife products, track a suspect, or support an operation, you immediately understand the operational value of the work. But for me, some of the most powerful moments are human.

It is the moment when a handler who was once afraid of dogs starts speaking to his dog with pride. It is the moment when a team succeeds without outside help. It is the moment when a handler reads a tiny behavioral change and makes the right decision because he truly understands his dog.

Those moments tell me that something deeper has happened. We are not only training dogs. We build confidence, responsibility, empathy, and professional identity.

In conservation, impact is often measured in numbers. That is necessary. But there is another kind of impact: the transformation of people who become stronger protectors of wildlife because they have been trusted, trained, and supported. That is what confirms to me, again and again, that this work matters.

What sort of future work do you see for dogs in the animal rescue and conservations space?

I believe the future of conservation dogs is immense.

Dogs are already helping to fight wildlife crime, detect endangered species, locate injured animals, find biological samples, support rescue operations, and improve conservation research. But we are still only at the beginning of what is possible.

The next major step will be combining canine capabilities with advanced technologies. Drones can survey large areas rapidly. Artificial intelligence can analyze images, environmental data, heat signatures, patrol information, or habitat changes to identify priority search zones. Then, canine teams can be deployed on the ground to confirm what technology cannot smell, interpret, or physically locate.

Imagine a post-fire landscape where drones identify possible refuge zones; AI prioritizes search areas, and a trained dog locates surviving animals hidden in the environment. This kind of integration could save time, resources, and lives. But the future is not only technological. It must also be ethical and professional.

I am currently involved in an international working group bringing together experts from different countries and disciplines to develop standards for conservation dogs. Surprisingly, despite the rapid growth of this field, there is still no widely recognized international standard for conservation canine programs. That has to change.

Standards are essential to protect dogs, support handlers, improve performance, reassure partners, and ensure that donor investment creates real and lasting impact.

The future of conservation dogs will depend on five things: science, welfare, technology, professional standards, and local capacity.

If we bring these elements together, canine teams can become one of the most powerful tools available to modern conservation. Not because dogs replace people or technology, but because they connect both. They bring intelligence, instinct, loyalty, and a capability no machine has yet been able to replicate.

Perhaps most importantly, they bring hope to places where conservation teams often work with too little support, too much pressure, and very little margin for error.