13 Wild Dog pups

It has been an extremely eventful couple of months for our Wild Dog pups and they have received considerable care to ensure their best welfare.

Our first scare came in September when Tour Guide Balon spotted a puff adder in the wild dog pup camp during one of his feeding tours. Puff adders are extremely venemous and cause the most fatalities in Africa so he quickly called Flo who rushed to the scene.

Armed with a grill paddle, Flo drove into the camp with no concern for himself and saw the dogs circling the snake. Unable to move or guide the snake away from the dogs (or the dogs away from the snake!), he had no other choice but to hit the snake with the grill paddle until it was dead. It's an unfortunate outcome for the snake but as wild dogs are Namibia's most endangered animal, we couldn't risk them being killed.

We were all on very high alert as the effects of a snake bite would appear within the first 30  minutes and could be fatal. To be sure that the dogs hadn't been bitten, Flo and a few volunteers sat and watched the dogs for 2 hours looking for any signs of sickness. Ironically, earlier that morning Flo had just finished writing an article on snakebites in wild dogs!

And as if that hadn't worried us enough, just 1 week later, Tour Guide Solomon noticed that one of the pups, face and neck was swollen. When wild dog guardian Flo rushed to the camp, he saw that it was one of the alpha females, Purdy. Fortunately he deduced that she was in no immediate danger and suspected it was a scorpion bite. He stayed with her all day keeping a close eye on her and went again very early the next morning when luckily she showed significant signs of improvement.

As our male and female pups are reaching sexual maturity (which happens between the age of 12-18 months usually), we needed to implement measures to prevent the animals from breeding as breeding in captivity is illegal in Namibia. We had two options - either seperate the 8 females and 5 males by building a second camp, or giving the females contraceptives. We decided to keep the pack together and give contraceptive implants to the females. These are similar to a human form of contraceptive and take the form of a small implant which is inserted just under the skin. 

So on Sunday 11th October we set about very early at 6am to enter the camp, sedate the dogs and insert the plants. Sounds simple.

We were accompanied by legendary German TV vet Dr Woolf and Namibian vet Dr Ulf to assist with the procedure and so the film crew, Dr Woolf, Dr Ulf, Marlice, Flo and Wildlife Biologist Stu entered the enclosure. The plan was to dart 4 of the females first and do the remaining 4 once they had woken up. However, when the team were quickly circled by all 13 dogs, they realised the best laid plans often go awry.

Dr Ulf darted the 4 females who started to fall asleep and so the team approached to take them to the side of the camp for the procedure. But as they did the remaining dogs went wild and tried to attack those carrying the females.

There was a moment of panic when Flo was circled by the dogs and one bit his shoe! One dog also grabbed at Marlice's stick so she used her other stick to hit him on the head! Venturing into the territory of a large pack of wild dogs is dangerous and not to be done lightly. Eventually they managed to get the 4 females out of the camp, darted the remaining 4 females and removed them also. Turns out the males aren't quite so brave without the females!

Once the dogs and team of staff, vets and film crew were safely out of the camp, the dogs were laid out and we checked their microchips for identification. With the help of a large group of volunteers we carried out complete health checks - blood samples, vaginal swabs, check for parasites, sprayed with flea repellent and their body temperature was regulated to ensure they didn't heat up too much whilst sedated.

The vets and our team then inserted the implants using a needle which is placed just on the neck and pushes the impant into the skin.

Once all the implants had been inserted the dogs were moved back into their enclosure to rejoin their pack. The 8 dogs were put inside 2 seperate cages, given the antidote to the sedative drug and left inside the enclosure to wake up. However, as we left them, the males tried to "rescue" the females by ripping at the tarpaulin that was covering the cages!

To stop the males, the team had to go back into the enclosure and stand by the cages protecting the females who were not full awake and ready to be "rescued"! Once they were fully awake we opened the cages and released the dogs.

The reunion was lovely, everyone was happy and now there will be no unwanted pregnancies between siblings!

In other news, N/a'an ku se has taken significant steps in our Wild Dog Conservation Initiative, using these 13 pups as a part of a rehabilitation programme and development of a strategy to save the endangered population of wild dog species in Namibia. For a full update on this project with our latest developments - CLICK HERE!