Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / The life-saving skills of Darwin rescue dog Zacc will be showcased at an upcoming documentary screening

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The life-saving skills of Darwin rescue dog Zacc will be showcased at an upcoming documentary screening · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Darw And rescue dog has starred in the Top Dog
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Film Festival. Now Zach joins me in the studio right
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: now with his trainer, Bronwyn Mullins. Now they feature in
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Dogs to the Rescue. It's a thirty minute documentary that
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: demonstrates the impressive use of dogs using their genetic behaviors
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: to make a difference in the community by saving lives.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Now, good morning to you, broad.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Good morning Katie.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: How are you.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: You're really good, so lovely to have you in the studio.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And of course we've got Zach in the studio as well.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: He's very well behaved.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: He's just walking around, having a bit of a smell
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: around the place.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Loves the patch and he's saying, what's going on now?
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about the work that you
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: guys do.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Firstly, So we're a volunteer canine team for oswe TASWORS,
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: which is the Australian Disaster Response Team. So we're trained
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: to find Zach's trained to find live people that are
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: missing in collapsed buildings and because by just structural collapse
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: or earthquakes and.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Things like that. Wow.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: And we also do land search as well.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: And so you guys are obviously based in the Northern
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Territory now, but you've worked in other locations around Australia
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: as well, haven't you.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so predominantly I'm part of the team that's based
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: in Brisbane.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Yep.
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  Speaker 3: I was transferred to Darwin with the RAF, so we
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: ended up here and I wanted to continue his training,
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: and I also noticed that there was a severe lack
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: of this capability in the territory as well.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: So tell us about have there been different events or
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: incidents that Zach has You know that Zach's obviously special
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: training has been required.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: For thankfully not yet. It's always you train to prepare
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  Speaker 3: and thankfully we haven't had that situation. I have gone
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: out in a volunteer capacity for the missing eighteen year
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: old in Humpty sorry earlier in the year. Unfortunately we
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: weren't able to assist greatly in that we were able
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: to cliss Mary's and stuff. Yeah, the family out in
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: that sense.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Now, Zach is incredibly friendly.
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  Speaker 1: He's just over here before with me getting a pat
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: What type of dog is Zach?
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: So here is a bigle cross kelpie.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Right, that's a cool cross.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so he has the hunt drive which is
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: what we look for in protection and the workability of
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: the kelpie and that endurance of the kelpy.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah right.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: How often does Zach have to go out exercising? Is
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: he pretty lively?
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Every day?
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Every day?
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: And am I glutton for punishment because I have three
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: of them?
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Good on you? That is incredible.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I'm always really fascinated by, you know, working dogs or
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: dogs that are trained to do incredible things. And I
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: know at different times I've had the Northern Territory Police
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: in with their dogs, and what I'm really fascinated by
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: with them is that they can sort of go from
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: interacting with the indeed a really friendly in a really
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: sort of friendly way, to them when they need to
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: switch on, they switch on.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Is that a similar situation for Zach?
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yep. If once I've cued him to search, it
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: doesn't matter what comes across in front of him, you know,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: whether it's a cat or wallaby or anything like that,
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: he literally just ignores it and keeps working.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: His drive for searching his extremely high yep.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: And that's the one job that he loves.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: A dog's the best to keep him busy.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Also, we have branched into wire security detection. Work as well,
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: so well, do some help with the government for that
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: out it for different pests and things like that.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: And how wonderful Now now Zach is about to become
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: well both of you, but but Zach is about to
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  Speaker 1: become a film star.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: He's going to be in a in a top dog film. Yep,
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  Speaker 2: Zach's the star. I'm just the hands are on the back.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: He does all the work. I say.
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  Speaker 3: I was extremely proud to be able to take part
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: in it when I was approached because it also highlights
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: there's loads of volunteer teams all around Australia in different
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: states that commit they're basically their whole lifestyle to training
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  Speaker 3: new side dogs. So hopefully this sheds a bit of
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  Speaker 3: light and lets people know that behind the scenes there
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: are a lot of people giving up their time to
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: give this capability.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Basically, yeah, which is a wonderful thing to do.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Now I know that that essentially people are going to
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: be able to see the screening of this film. I
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: think it's Wednesday, the twenty fourth of August, isn't ash.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: That's correct the deck Chest Cinema.
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  Speaker 2: Is it going to be the first time you've seen
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: it in full?
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  Speaker 3: It will be it will be. My parents saw it
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: last night in Townsville. Yeah, and they said it was
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: it was really good. So, I mean they can be
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: a bit by so no, but they said the whole
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: crowd was extremely happy with it.
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  Speaker 2: And that's what we want.
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  Speaker 3: We just want to, you know, have people go away
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: from the the film festival feeling really good and loafhearted
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: about it all.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: So and knowing, like having a better understanding as well.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I reckon of the capabilities of our like our wonderful dogs.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: That's and that's right.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, there's no I don't think there's any
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  Speaker 3: limits as to what we can teach them. Yeah, and
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: as long as they love to do it, that's that's
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  Speaker 3: the main thing.
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  Speaker 2: They are the best, aren't they. How Like do you
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  Speaker 2: ever give him rewards?
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I know you said you've got three dogs, but you know,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: does he get anything special?
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  Speaker 3: I try not to show too much favoritism, but he
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: is my main boy. If we are if we've done
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: a hard search or a hard training session. His favorite
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: is Maci's ice crenk.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Doesn't get it too often, but when he does, I'm
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: sure he enjoys it. Now, how Like, how many hours
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: of training has gone into you know, to getting Zach
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: to the point where he is able to do what
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: he does.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: So on average we go, like official scheduled training about
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: ten to twelve hours a week. Yeah, that doesn't include
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: what we do at home, so probably twenty to twenty
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: five hours a week.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, goodness mate.
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  Speaker 1: Like I said, I think it's incredible the way that
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: you know, we've got these wonderful dogs that are part
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: of the community that can do really incredible things. And
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: it sounds as though this film is going to be
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: a cracker. So it is going to be screened at
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the deck Chair Cinema on Wednesday, the twenty fourth of August.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: If you're an animal lover, if you're fascinated by working dogs,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: I reckon it's a wonderful one to go and.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: Catch Zach and myself will be there along with my
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: youngest ones. So Zach's going to be signing autographs so
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: to speak.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Well are you there?
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: So yeah, he'll love all the attention of pats and cuddles.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Well, Bronwyin Mullins, thank you so very much for coming
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: into the studio and letting us meet Zach as well
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and telling us a little.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Bit more about it, No worry, he's glad to come.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much,