On 16th June a police helicopter was sent north in search of a vehicle with poachers in who had killed a rhino near Vaalwater, Limpopo.

Jimmy, our 10 mth old foxhound who, about 12hrs later was shown the footprints that ended at a tar road, said “Ai cona! These don't belong to the poachers: they are the builders footprints who are still at some stables nearby!” It was a miracle that he could follow any tracks as humans had drawn circles in the sand with their fingers around the footprints, adding their scent to the prints, and lots of people had walked all around and over the tracks.

But somehow Jimmy did and he took his handler Julie Prinsloo and an investigator Dawid Roux, straight to the buiders.

The builders’ footprints were not near the dead rhino, and so Dawid confronted the rhino owner’s workers and told them that the dog said that they had shown them and the police the wrong tracks on purpose, and that the dog was now going to tell them who the poachers really were!

The workers were so rattled that they then gave the police information about the real poachers who had gone South to Pretoria and not northwards.

The poachers were then caught red-handed with the horn in Pretoria.

Thanks to young Jimmy.

This was the second time that he'd been asked to help at a crime scene, and both times he caused arrests to be made. 

Jimmy tracked thieves to their house

The first time that Jimmy caught criminals was a few weeks before the rhino poaching incident above. A neighbour's tractor had been stolen and a few other things. Jimmy had only had our 20 minutes basic tracking training but Julie took him out to the scene of the crime anyway. He immediately tracked the thieves right up to their house, where they were then arrested.

 Jimmy helped protect neighbours' rhinos

Jimmy's brother Yodel began crime-busting at 7 mths! 

Before Jimmy 'got the call' to help fight crime in our area, his brother Yodel had already made huge waves in the farming area of KZN from the age of 7 mths! His owner, Andy Halpin, had never worked with dogs before coming to us to buy a tracking dog. We showed him how to train a dog who had never been on a lead before to track in 20 minutes, and took Yodel out to demonstrate this. Andy took to tracking like a duck to water and so did Yodel. Instead of an older experienced dog Andy then took Yodel. Two weeks later they made their first arrests! They tracked thieves up to their house; they tracked other thieves and showed where goods had been stolen that the owners hadn't noticed; and correctly  identified one of the owner's employees as one of the thieves in a 'line-up'!

Yodel and Andy went on to catch farm murderers, arsonists and thieves, and the crime rate dropped dramatically as word spread in the community of the 'detective dog' and man who could follow any criminal to his house and identify him!