Most passers-by would not have noticed anything unusual at this particular salt lake near Morawa, in Western Australia's Mid West.But Kep the English springer spaniel knew otherwise.
Key points:
- Kep is a water detection canine used by Water Corp to find leaks
- She sniffs out the chlorine in scheme water
- She was selected for the program at just three days of ageand underwent eight months of training
The Water Corporation's scent detection canine was able to accurately sniff out the location of two major leaks coming from pipes underground, in what was her most significant find so far in more than two years on the job.
Kep, named for the Noongar word for water, works as part of the corporation'snon-visible leaks program.
As the state's supplier of water, it has a total network of pipes measuring almost 35,000 kilometres and is the largest water utility in the world in terms of the geographical area serviced.
Working alongsidecanine handler Andrew Blair, Kep was able to identify her target scent of chlorinated waterand despite there being a shallow layer of rainwater over the salt lakeshe was able to narrow down the exact location where it was coming fromunderground.
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Chlorine the key
Mr Blairnoticed vegetation growingthat appeared a little unusual for the area, so decided to see if Kep could pick anything up.
"Pretty much as soon as we hit the water it was obvious to meshe was onto something," he said.
"I wasn't sure if she'd be able to give me a good result as the entire area was flooded with water."
Kep pointed out two specific locations and Mr Blair returned with his acoustic equipment to confirm the leaks.
"She had indicated within metres of one and basically right on top of the other," he said.
It was estimated that about 350 litres of water was being lost per minute —that's about half a million litres a day.
"Kep — in about 10 minutes —saved us. Who knows how much water over the course of however many years those leaks might've gone undiagnosed,"Mr Blair said.
Last year, the non-visible leaks program searched about 3,800 kilometres of mains and, of that, Kep searched about 250 kilometres.
The program saved about 2.7 billion litres of water and Kep would have been responsible for about 197 million litres of it, that's approximately 80 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Mr Blair said Kep spedup the process of identifying the exact location of leaks, saving time and money.
"A search of 5 kilometres of buried pipeline using traditional methods of acoustic detectioncould take weeks. She clears that at least 10 times faster," he said.
Acoustic devices were generally used to find underground leaks but narrowing down a leak across long networks of pipes could be difficult.
"What a correlator does isit listens to the noise at each end and then tells you, based on a distance, where there is a leak noise in the pipe, over the course of say 10 kilometres that's not really practical, it won't be very accurate," Mr Blair said.
"It's definitely a lot easier to move up the pipe with the dog and let her tell you where she's getting a scent.
"Then we can listen directly with the probing equipment."
Not your average pet
Kep was chosen for her role with the Water Corporation at just three days of age.
After about eight months of training in Sydney, Kep arrived in Perth in late 2018 to begin her working life.
"There haveactually been a few dogs that have started up since Water Corp proved the efficacy of the program," Mr Blair said.
A handful of dogs have since been trained for the same purpose in the United Kingdom and other parts of Australia.
Being a working dog, Kep is treated a little differently to a regular household dog.
She spends most weekdays on the job, sniffing out leaks and she travels in a climate-controlled dog crate built into her handler's vehicle.
"With a lot of working dogs, to make sure that when they get to work, they have the highest drive possible, they need to have a better time at work than they do in their home life," Mr Blair said.
To do this she has "controlled yard time"and has her own area in Mr Blair's home.
"She doesn't get to just run around the house, or the backyard whenever she wants, that sort of reinforcer is kept for when she works, that ensures when she hits the ground looking for leaks, that there is nothing else in her life that is better than looking for that chlorine," he said.
Despite the controlled environment Kep lives in, she still enjoys a run around with Mr Blair's pet dog, a kelpie cross blue heeler.
"They get along famously, they have a play in the backyard together every day, they just don't sleep together at night and don't interact 100 per cent of the time when they are at home," he said.
She is also very close to Mr Blair.
"We have such a great bond, it's very hard to explain," he said.
"We find these leaks together, without my human input she wouldn't be able to find these leaks and without her canine input we wouldn't be able to find them either, we use her nose, my eyes," he said.
