The dingo is an all round predator with the full compliment of wild sense skills fully intact, and developed to the degree the harsh Aussie habitat demands.   

Domestic dogs have been selectively bred for segmented senses of the wild dog ancestor.  For instance the Beagles, Bloodhounds, etc.  utilise their scenting abilities and the others, such as sight, cursorial ability, and hearing are "switched off or atrophied".  They rely on the one  sense which has been bred for.  

The sighthounds, dogs which hunt by seeing the prey, do not use their noses, as most originated in hot desert areas where scents do not linger.  They rely on picking up movement and then their running ability to chase and catch prey.  They also mostly have dropped or rose ears and their hearing is  underdeveloped when compared to the wolf ancestor.  Herding dogs have been sectioned out for their ability to round up and drive the prey (sheep), but selected  for those animals and then trained which do not carry through the natural process of this herding/hunting to the kill.

The dingo, retains in full measure ALL of the senses, sight, scenting ability, and most important his hearing is not switched off when he is working with his other senses.   He is probably superior in all of these as well.  His cursorial or running skills are geared towards stamina, rather than pure speed, but he has retained and honed  what he needs in Australia, (and then responded to local environment, such as cold snowy mountains, or hot dry desert)    Mostly he is tougher  and more resillient and more persistent than all or any domestic breed.  (that is why the cattlemen stole his genes for their heelers)    And reptiles  are his natural prey - he is geared to find these things in the wild.

Domestic breeding has merely separated out the various natural abilities from the ancestral stock for the utilisation of man.  It has not and cannot derive anything more or better than what was genetically in the ancestral stock to start with.  It merely specialises one sense at the expense of the others.

Specifically with the cane toad - the dingo is able to get into the places where cane toads frequent -  I have personally seen them in the cane fields.  They do not rely on scent alone - their hearing is acute, and does not switch off like the specialised domestic breeds when on a scent.  They have the flexibility of body and limbs and toughness of feet, ability to go for long periods without needing to drink, which no domestic breed could match.   
 

The Belgian Shepherd cannot have the  stamina, it is the wrong make and shape, (tall and square) and needs frequent hydrating, and too high off the ground for the task of cane toad sniffing.  To my mind a Jack Russel would be a better bet for training for cane toading. That the animal is able to detect a specific scent in a superior manner is one thing - being able to rat it out of the rough and keep going - is quite another.

By Renee Switzer

SAY "dingo" and the first thing people think is "ate my baby", says animal trainer Sarah Fyffe.

But the perception of the dingo as a savage predator may soon change. The species is now being used to help the hearing-impaired and being trained as sniffer dogs.

Yesterday, John Hogan travelled from Sydney to Victoria's Dingo Discovery Centre in Toolern Vale, with his assistance dingo, Donna, the first certified dingo guide in the world.

Donna is 10 years old and Mr Hogan felt it was time to select and train a new dingo from the Victorian centre. Helping in the selection process was Ms Fyffe, an animal trainer from Western Australia who trains dingoes to sniff out cane toads. But things did not go as planned. Donna was not happy about her owner taking on a new pup. Mr Hogan will now wait until she dies before he gets a new dingo.

Yesterday, Mr Hogan said he preferred the dingo as an assistance dog because of their "intelligence and elegance". He said dingoes were telepathic, had no body odour and very powerful hearing.

However, he admitted that about half of the people he came into contact with were scared of Donna because she is a dingo.

Lyn Watson runs the Dingo Discovery Centre and said dingoes were highly intelligent. "They are different to domesticated dogs, which only use one of their senses at a time, in that they use all of their senses at a time," she said.

Ms Watson has 20 adults and 16 pups but said some would be taken by zoos and fauna parks, as well as by people who have permits to own dingoes as pets.

Ms Watson said once dingoes bonded with their owners they were "the most gentle, loving, affectionate, caring animal". She will be passing on her love for the animal as part of a new group to be launched next month — the Dingo Team — which will work to make children understand the conservation issues surrounding the species. Ms Watson hopes the group will change the public's perception of dingoes.

"It is not a dangerous animal on the record but it is an enormously dangerous animal in people's minds," she said.

Ms Fyffe has four dingoes she has trained to sniff out cane toads to help the Western Australian volunteer group Kimberley Toadbusters.

One of her dogs, Buffy, is originally from the Dingo Discovery Centre. "We field-trialled her and she bagged just over 50 (cane toads) in about three hours. By using all of her senses, she finds a hell of a lot of toads."

In her element, dingo expert Lyn Watson surrounded by dingo pups at the Dingo Discovery Centre at Toolern Vale.
Photo: Nicole Emanuel