Gem belongs to Chris Rickard who worked with Rowi in South Okarito Forest from 1996 to 2002.  Chris got Gem to help him find kiwi in the forest. 

Kiwi workers who don’t have dogs can locate known kiwi by looking in the kiwi’s favourite places (like in a burrow or under a cutty grass bush), and by radio tracking them.  Workers can find new kiwi at night by imitating a kiwi call to attract the kiwi to where they are and then catch them. 

Dogs have an incredible sense of smell.

Gem can ‘air scent’ (follow scents that waft through the air) and ‘ground scent’ (follow the scent that is left on the ground and other things, like vegetation, when an animal walks through an area). 

When Chris started training Gem, she loved smelling lots of different smells in the forest, including deer and rats! 

When Chris and Gem were near a kiwi, Gem started following the kiwi scent. Chris gave her lots of praise for following the scent, so in time she learnt to only follow the kiwi smells and to ignore all of the other smells. 

When Gem is really close to a kiwi she ‘points’ to let Chris know that the kiwi is close

When Gem ‘points’ she stands really still with her head straight out in front of her and her tail straight out behind.  Sometimes she lifts one of her front feet off the ground! 

Gem would never try to hurt a kiwi (she likes sniffing them out and being praised too much!) but just in case she always wears a muzzle over her mouth when she is working.

Gem is able to help Chris to locate known birds quickly

Gem can follow the scent of a kiwi to where they are, instead of having to try to find them by radio tracking and looking in all of the places they could be. She is also useful finding known birds whose radio transmitters have fallen off.  Chris takes her to the area where they usually are and she searches for their scent. 

Gem is also good at helping Chris to find new kiwis.  During the day Chris takes her to an area where they are looking for new birds and she can ‘show’ Chris whether there is kiwi scent in the area.  If there is, Chris marks the spot and returns at night to ‘call’ them in.

As well as kiwi, she is really good at finding Takahe and Whio/Blue duck scent. 

Chris and Gem make a great team

When Gem isn’t at work she’s Chris’ pet dog.  She loves going for runs (she can run really fast!) and she gets to come inside

in the evenings to sit on her bean bag, before she goes to bed

in her kennel to dream about finding kiwi!