Canine Conservation: Ol Jogi’s handlers earn ASCTI certification
Always Ready: Inside the Ol Jogi Canine Unit
Every Ol Jogi handler has now achieved American Society of Canine Trainers International (ASCTI) certification in tracking.
Meet the Handlers Behind the Hounds
Ol Jogi currently has four canine handlers: Consolata Safari, Francis Thomas Sintoroi, Mosino Emmanual Disa and Josephine Nanikan (read more in our “Meet Your Team” stories of Josephine and Consolata). The unit’s professional development is supported by Canine Performance Consultants (CPC), specialist dog trainers who have worked with units across Africa. CPC visits Ol Jogi twice a year for intensive ten-day training periods, helping maintain standards, refine existing skills and certify handlers against international benchmarks.
All four members of the team have achieved Master Handler status, strengthening both technical expertise and leadership within the unit. Mosino Emmanual Disa has progressed further to the rank of Senior Master Handler, recognising his experience, leadership and long-term commitment to the programme.
The Ol Jogi Canine Unit specialises in human scent detection and tracking, providing an important additional capability to the conservancy’s wider security operations. The team’s five bloodhounds – Copper, Tui, and Checker (all nine years old) and Ravi and Serah (both two years old) – are trained to follow an individual human scent across different terrain and conditions, by day or night. Their work ranges from searching for a lost or missing person to following a suspect’s trail during a security or law-enforcement operation. The dogs follow the scent; their handlers and accompanying security personnel assess and manage the circumstances surrounding the operation. That ability is possible only through extraordinary preparation.
Training for Every Track
Training begins when the dogs are approximately three months old. At first, the exercise is deliberately simple and positive: a familiar person moves around 100 metres away, calls the puppy and rewards it with food when it successfully finds them. Gradually, that person, known during training as the “decoy” moves farther away, introduces turns and different terrain, and eventually disappears completely from sight.
As the puppies develop, the challenges become progressively harder. Tracks become longer, more complex and older, teaching the dogs to distinguish and follow scent even after significant time has passed. They are eventually trained to work tracks that were laid six to eight hours earlier. Other exercises include line-ups, where several people stand together and the dog must correctly identify the decoy, as well as extensive socialisation in different environments so the dogs learn to remain focused despite unfamiliar noises, smells and distractions.
Short operational-style tracks can begin before a dog reaches its first birthday, but it generally takes around a year of progressive training before a bloodhound is considered fully operational. Reaching that milestone does not mean training stops.
The unit begins its day around seven in the morning with husbandry, before dogs and handlers head into the field at about eight. Generally, three dogs train on a given day, and each dog must complete at least three training exercises and a minimum of nine kilometres every week. The programme is designed to maintain physical conditioning while continually sharpening the tracking skills the dogs may need without warning in a real operation.
That preparation has translated into meaningful results in the field. Ol Jogi’s canine team has tracked suspects, assisted in searches for missing people, helped recover stolen property and supported ranger operations wherever specialist tracking capabilities have been required.
A Partnership Built on Trust
Ol Jogi’s handlers rotate between the dogs rather than remaining permanently paired with one animal. Trust develops through countless ordinary interactions between operations, feeding, husbandry, exercise, and repeated training, creating dogs that confidently work with different members of the team.
The dogs are cared for throughout every stage of their working lives. When the time eventually comes to retire, they may be rehomed or remain at Ol Jogi’s kennels, where they continue to enjoy walks and shorter training exercises that provide physical activity and mental stimulation.
Looking ahead, the ambition is not simply to add more dogs. Ol Jogi hopes to see its handlers continue progressing through the professional ranks, eventually developing into senior trainers capable of mentoring others. The unit already supports operations across Laikipia, and strengthening that wider capability, alongside improving kennel, training and retirement facilities for the dogs, is an important part of its future.
Behind every successful track or recovery are hundreds of hours that few people ever see: early mornings, kilometres travelled through the bush, repeated exercises, husbandry, patience and the continual building of trust between human and dog. This combination of a bloodhound’s remarkable natural ability and the expertise of the people working alongside them makes the Ol Jogi Canine Unit an important part of safeguarding wildlife, people, and the wider Laikipia landscape.
