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Go nose to nose with Australia's Quarantine dogs
AQIS 20801
The national capital’s residents and visitors will have a rare opportunity to see the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service’s famous detector dogs demonstrating their skills at the National Museum of Australia at 10:30 this Thursday (10 January).
The fun begins with an interactive demonstration of the dogs’ remarkable skills and intelligence, and the methods used to train them.
AQIS beagles, which work at Australia’s international airports, are trained to respond to more than 30 target odours — everything from meat, dairy and plant products to honeybees, eggs . . . even snakes and lizards.
A beagle’s nose is said to be a hundred times more sensitive than a human’s, and our dogs have an uncanny ability to sniff out smugglers — including grapevine cuttings hidden in a passenger’s underpants, mangoes concealed in a traveller’s armpits . . . and queen bees secreted inside a fountain pen!
AQIS uses other detector dogs at international mail centres and air courier depots to screen every item of mail coming into Australia. Our dogs aren’t distracted by declarations on mail items, so they’re not fooled when a parcel labelled as containing ‘wallpaper samples’ turns out to have salami inside.
The public is invited to watch the dogs at work as well as to visit the Something To Declare: Centenary of Quarantine 1908-2008 exhibition, on show until 31 January.
The exhibition acknowledges the significance of quarantine’s anniversary, and the role the men and women of AQIS play in helping to protect Australia from exotic pests and diseases.
The exhibition includes a display of the animatronic ‘big bugs’ used in the latest Quarantine Matters! advertising campaign.
Media contact: Carson Creagh 0414 577 472