Pet Life Magazine, New Zealand Pet Life Magazine Issue 4 Spring 2017 | Page 4

HERO HOUNDS
Dogs are just the best pets! Every day they make you laugh, their love is
unconditional, they have a nose for knowing when something’s wrong, and they
always have your back. But some dogs spread their super powers far and wide,
outside the family. Pet Life editor Inger Vos meets four such hero hounds.
Mena - finder of
penguins
They smell, they bite,
it’s a wet job and the
novelty wears off
quickly for many who
sign up to help work
with little blue penguins.
But it’s always fun for
Mena.
The 5-year-old Hungarian
Vizsla from Kaikoura is New
Zealand’s only dedicated, DOC-certified little blue penguin
detector dog and her keen nose has been sniffing out burrows
for nearly two years now, helping to contribute to penguin
research and conservation efforts wherever she is needed in
New Zealand.
“She loves it,” says Mena’s owner and handler, Alastair
Judkins, co-founder of the Kaikoura Ocean Research Institute
(KORI), a network of marine researchers and educators
committed to protecting the marine environment.
Mena’s jo