September 10, 2008

Cloud, a black lab, has been trained to sniff out dolphins in distress. (Pet Pulse Photo by Alicia Zaitsu, Design by Mike Lloyd)

MIAMI -- Labs are popular assistance dogs in the United States, commonly serving both visually impaired people and police forces.

But one Florida-based black lab, Cloud, is taking the job to a whole new, aquatic level.

The 3-year-old dog is trained to odor-detect dolphins in distress.

On a typical day at the Dolphin Cove Research and Education Center in Key Largo, Cloud could be seen checking on her "dolphin friends" that call the facility home.

"They're very curious of her," said Chris Blankenship, the senior marine biologist at Dolphin Cove. "They come up and look, move their heads back and forth. They kind of see her as a friend, I suppose."

In order to train Cloud to recognize the dolphins’ scent, Blankenship hid vials of dolphin tissue around Dolphin Cove.

"I remember one time I had thrown it (a vial) into about three feet of water and she was in an area where she couldn't see what was going on," Blankenship recalled.

"I put her on her alert and she went like she was going to go get her ball. She literally put her head into the water and pulled up the pipe with the sample. So we know it works."

Blankenship and his partner in this unique mission, Beth Smart, have both witnessed dolphins die during mass strandings in South Florida.

"Strandings don't occur with any rhyme or reason," said Smart, director of the Dolphin & Marine Medical Research Foundation in Palm Beach, Fla. "They occur when you least expect it and you have to be prepared for that."

A 2005 mass stranding in the Florida Keys killed some 30 dolphins. It can sometimes prove difficult for humans to spot stranded dolphins, but Cloud’s nose can pick up where people’s eyes leave off.

Cloud and her handler make regular trips along the Florida coastline to practice her craft.

"If she were alerting on a stressed, injured or dead animal she'd go into a sit and then bark," Blankenship said.

Cloud has succeeded in locating distressed animals in three separate marine incidents.

"Her sense of smell is just very, very astute and just dead on accurate," Smart said.

But Cloud is still waiting to test her skills in an unfortunate mass stranding.

"She is what I would say is the Coast Guard of dogs in waiting for that mass stranding when it does happen," Smart said. "She is there and she is going to be ready to go and she will be there to speed up locating any missed dolphins and whales."

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