Not long ago I wrote in about a bloke I met at a dog seminar, who was a dog handler with Zim national parks. He now trains dogs to find termites. Well upon his return back to his home town his got the sack and so as to not set up his own company his boss got immigration involved and he's been deported back to Zim

Nice fucken way for a boss to treat a guy that helped him pull in a million bucks

Sorry fella's just a little venting there.

Bakes

Sounds like a businss opportunity to me. He has a rare skill probably difficult to hire in this country. Get him back and go into partnership.

"Bakes and Co, Termite Professional Hunters".

He has to get back here first. When I was speaking to him in Rocky he said that he trained up a drug dog, and approached some councils with the idea being to clear play grounds and other public areas from syringe's etc. Nobody wanted to know him. They would rather buy some expensive piece of equipment that fails rather than putting their faith in a dog I hope he comes back and sets up a business. He has a wealth of knowledge that shouldn't leave the country.

Got a name and addy on his ex boss?

A pretty sad tale. Glad to call you friend, Bakes.
You're a damn good man.

Bakes,

if he wants to do something like that with the drug dogs and clearing playgrounds and what not, he should come to the states. I am not saying we have the largest drug problem, it seems though that the government is very interested in searching out sources around kids. They take dogs onto school campuses, in the parking lots etc. Just a thought.

I am pretty amazed that he can train them to find termites, I guess the dogs hearing is just that good. Sounds like his boss was a real bunghole.

he could also see about being a contractor supplying dogs to the US. with all the homeland security stuff they may need more dogs than they can train on their own.

Red

Mickey

Blue Ribbon pest control, Townsville QLD. Thats all I know.



Dago Red

I don't know what he's going to do, his options are open. I have his email address so I'll keep in touch with him. He did say that he wasn't really welcome back in Zim, so who knows whats install for him.



The dogs don't hear the termites they smell them, well not the termites themseleves as they have no smell, but they smell the odour of the farts they produce! The dogs are fantastic, with a huge ammount of drive.



Nick

Like wise mate!

I was pretty shocked when I got this news. Mike's boss has just let his most valuable trainer go and Debbie the girl he trained up as well



Here's the email



Hope all is well and dogs are behaving. Sorry about the delay in catching

up and replying to some of you, but there are a few reasons for this.

Firsly, its taken me a long time to get rid of the mother of all hangovers-

but will be back with avengence for the next meeting and secondly and rather

disturbing, Debbie and I lost our jobs on returning to Townsville. So we

are no longer with the termite guys.

The company that I had been working for had known for a while that I was not

happy with the the way things are being run concerning the dogs and before I

left to the BiathalonI had requested a meeting with the management and a few

consultants to sort things out.

So on our return to Townsville I got handed a lawyers letter with my

dismissal and notice that my employers had cancelled my visa! So I'm just a

few days off from my deportation back to Zimbabwe.

Apparently because my exemployers are worried about me setting up a detector

dog school of my/our own and so to safe guard their interests got me

deported. Which is quite upsetting because when we started their termite

dog project they were a bitty little company and because of the dog section

they now gross in the millions!

Anyway after making Australia my home for the last 5 years, I can say I've

met a hell of a lot of good people and the AATWA long weekend was surely one

of the best 4 days I had here.

At the moment its a bit a mad rush to get things organised and have had to

change my email adress so as to be able to contactable wherever I'm sent.

However will keep in contact.

One thing is for sure though, (and this is for the guys who got me totalled

the night before the biathalon), Australia is the most definatelly the land

of HIPTOMAS! So whilst I'll end up back in Africa warding of the wild

beasties again you guys will at least be having a more difficult time with

the feral HIPTOMAS' here. (or at least Rockhampton).



Keep in touch,



Cheers

Mike.



The fact that he said he would be back for the mext meeting tells me he will try to get back here.

If he has been here for 5 years I'm surprised the permanent residency option isn't available. Of course the bureaucrats usually require the person to return to their "home" country to lodge an application and it often can take at least 6 months for it to happen.

His boss is a complete arsehole but these termite businesses are cons anyway (in my opinion). In the past they did an expensive residual poisoning job around houses and sheds. It lasted for ten years and cost a lot. Those poisons are now banned and instead of offering service some of them came up with a 'con' business where they set traps and monitor them over the years for many thousands of dollars. When termites (white ants) are found they follow them up and exterminate the nests. If you don't sign up for a $5G monitoring programme all they will do is visually look for nests and spray them. I never understood why they couldn't do the trap thing, destroy the found nests without a 5 year contract of may thousands of $$$. Of course the reason is $$$.

People with attitudes like this, usually display the same sort of behaviour in other parts of their business and lives as well.

I think your mate had a cost effective (for the customer) way of dealing with termites which didn't cost big $$$. As I said a real business opportunity which can undercut the other bastards.

I am sorry to hear about your friend.

Dogs are fascinating, I was watching a program where dogs were smelling for cancer on peoples skin, and prostrate cancer by smelling urine. In the same program, some dogs were used for people who had epilepsy... apparently the dogs smelled various hormones that people gave off before having a seizure. The dogs could forewarn the owner that he/she was going to have a seizure... upto 45 min in advance.

Termite farts? I guess I am going to have to start telling people their house has termites when I come over and fart on my own free will.

I agree Nitro. Mike did a demo for us and the dogs were great. We were staying at the Army Reserve barracks in Rocky and Mike and the dogs actually found termites in the huts we were in. Its hard to describe the focus the dogs have but its very intence.