Sarah Fyffe
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As I child I was definitely “daddy’s girl” - He was a veterinary surgeon and I spent the majority of my childhood following him around like a shadow, forever asking questions. I fell in love with dingoes after a visit to the late Bruce Jacobs dingo farm and began trying to find out everything about them from then on.
My teenage years were a mess, my parents divorced, and shortly after my father committed suicide and I began a fast downward spiral of drug and alcohol abuse, thinking I had nothing to live for. Luckily I had a friend who refused to let me continue this way. He pushed me to fulfil my dreams of becoming an animal trainer. I pulled myself together and put myself through all the training and courses I could find.
Over the years I have worked with many animals and although I love them all, working with dingoes is by far the most rewarding.
I gave birth to my son in 2003 and continued working, this time training Labradors for the physically disabled, I felt honoured to be part of the training process of these remarkable dogs who give many disabled people their sense of independence back.
In 2004 my relationship with my sons father turned extremely violent and I packed up and moved to WA.
My attentions soon turned to the dingo once again when I discovered so many were owned in secret due to the laws in WA prohibiting ownership. Although I don’t advocate dingoes as pets, I felt maddened by the secrecy as the majority of the dingoes I encountered we overly shy (more-so than normal) due to their owners being too afraid of losing them to socialize them properly.
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I had to do something to help the dingo and its extremely tarnished reputation, but what? Having a father in politics I knew that writing letters to authorities was futile as the majority got filed “b” - for bin!
I decided to train up some dingoes to perform some advanced tasks to show people the other side of the coin, so to speak. So, along came Chloe, Shadow and recently Buffy and another little girl who is yet to be named.
At first I wanted to train them to find cane toads but my initial applications were rejected, so I decided to start small and teach them to find gunpowder, now that I showed that could be done, the cane toad project was allowed and is almost at completion.
Training is 4 times a day with each dingo and each session takes up to 30mins and must be tailored for each individual.
We are almost ready to take the girls up to Kununurra to trial them in the field with the Kimberley toad busters who are a wonderful group of volunteers who are at present holding the frontline of toads back and preventing them from entering WA.
It's a busy time for me, with four dingoes, my 2 ½ yr son Jarrod and now my 5month old daughter Savannah.
Life with dingoes is extremely rewarding however always hard work, they test the boundaries constantly and will challenge you for leadership if they feel they could do a better job! I do believe that people have a right to share their life with a dingo however I feel that the dingo should be owned under a wildlife licence, similar to owning a reptile requires. The dingo is not an animal that is easily re-homed and I have seen many of them put to sleep due to owners changing their mind about keeping them when the dingo becomes mature - these people should never have gotten a dingo in the first place. When you get a dingo you need to put the work in with them and learn to take the good with the bad, believe me - even my trained dingoes will cause havoc if given the opportunity! If you are houseproud or love your garden - DON’T GET A DINGO! If you want a guard dog, a dog that you can walk without a leash, or leave at home all day to their own devices and only walk or show it attention when you feel like it - DON’T GET A DINGO!!!
That’s said, I wouldn’t have any other canine, I love the dingo because it is a dingo, and there’s nothing like coming home and having a chorus of howls and wet dingo kisses to greet you!
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