Hello everyone and welcome to the Indefensive Plants podcast, the official podcast of Indefensiveplants.com. What's up? This is your host, Matt. Welcome to the show. How's everyone doing this week? If you still haven't yet, there's still time to go pick up a bunch of our new merch designs over at Tyspring.com slash stores slash indefensive plants. I thank everyone who's done so so far. It's a great way to help

support the show and a few conservation charities while you're at it. So again, that's Tispring.com

slash stores slash indefensive plants. All right, today's episode is unique. I'm really excited

for it because it involves pooches. I love dogs. And to see dogs entering into the conservation world just warms my heart.

I'm really excited to bring a bunch of members on from rogue detection teams.

Rogue specializes in bringing the conservation detection dog method to the forefront of scientific research by providing knowledgeable field teams and hands-on

instruction for researchers, aspiring dog handlers, and citizen scientists to foster collaboration

and community involvement.

It's really cool work that they're doing, and oftentimes it involves animal work, so sniffing

out scats of rare and endangered animals, but recently, Rogue has been branching out into the

world of plants and

plant diseases, which is really exciting because there's a lot of things dogs can do, especially

with their sniffers, that we can't do. So as I mentioned, I brought a bunch of members on today.

I'm going to start off by talking to three field operatives, Duke, Hooper, and Athena. And then we're

going to move into talking to lead

instructor Heath Smith about what was behind rogue detection teams and what they're doing moving

into the future. This is really exciting work, and it's giving dogs that normally don't

fit well into human families a second chance at making a living and living their best lives.

It's uplifting work. It's good for the dogs. It's good for conservation.

And they're doing really important stuff. So let's jump right into it. Without further ado,

here's my conversation with the rogue detection team members. I hope you enjoy. All right, Athena, Duke, and Hooper, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

It's an honor to have you here.

...