When agronomist Zoe Eagger bought her labrador Max, the plan was for him just to be a typical run-of-the-mill farm dog.
But the pup is leaving behind his role as a pet and embarking on a new career, which could be a game-changer for cane farmers struggling with a notorious pest.
Canegrubs might be small, but they can cause excessive damage to sugarcane crops. A growing number of the native pests have been found in Mackay and the Burdekin region of north Queensland.
"The plan for Max is to help me in my work detecting canegrubs in cane paddocks," Ms Eagger said.
"Canegrubs are a huge detriment to the industry. It's nothing for a grower to lose an entire crop."
Agronomist Rob Milla is the manager of Burdekin productivity services. He agreed that the rise in sightings of the pest was a problem.
He said that last year the Burdekin region lost almost 12,500 tons of sugarcane to the grub.
"That's a loss of about $700,000," Mr Milla said.
"The reason we're a bit concerned is [the] increasing numbers reported by growers."
Could dogs be the answer?
Ms Eagger didn't expect her labrador could play a part in a canegrub solution until she went along to a workshop that introduced her to "scent training".
Scent training involves teaching dogs to detect certain odours through a reward system.
According to Max's trainers Ell Young and Samantha Eeles, the technique is adaptable to any number of target scents.
"So we would start off with a little fun game of him finding a little bit of food that's hidden, and then what we do is we transition to a scent or an odour," Ms Young said.
"Eventually, the dog goes, 'Hey, wait that smell equals a reward.'"
Ms Eagger wondered if the principles used in scent training could be used to teach Max to sniff out the pest plaguing the cane industry.
"It was a bit of a pie in the sky idea, but why not detect cane grubs in the local area?" she said.
Ms Young and Ms Eeles got to work training the canine to find the grubs.
"In Max's case, we hide a little container with a grub out in a controlled space and when he gets to it, we pay him [with food]."
Early success is encouraging
Ms Eagger said she was surprised how successful the training had been so far.
"It was more just a fun thing I was going to try with him," she said.
"But after his first proper training session, he actually could pick up the scent quite reliably, even though he probably only had an hour or two of training.
"He's got potential although he may never amount to [being used on a] commercial scale, but I thought it'd be crazy not to give it a go."
Ms Eeles said there was huge potential for dogs to use their sense of smell for a wide range of uses.
"Dogs have got such a keen sense of smell and any application like this could definitely work for sure," she said.
Ms Young said finding dogs that were well-suited to this type of work was important.
She said, like people, some dogs were better suited to certain jobs than others.
"At the end of the day, genetics plays a big part and temperament plays a big part as well.
"You've got to have the right dog for the job."
Tipping off farmers when something's not right
While dogs can be used to detect the pest, Mr Milla said that best practice was for growers to ensure they were on top of the pests before they showed up in the paddocks.
"If you are in an area that is known to be potential for grubs, then you probably should sit down with your agronomist and work out a management plan for your property," he said.
But Ms Eagger said if canegrubs were to descend upon the farm, a dog could help farmers to identify early on when a treatment wasn't working.
"We've had a lot of canegrub populations surviving, even though [the paddocks] have been treated," Ms Eagger said.
"So my idea is we can take Max out and find these thriving populations and then discuss with the farmers why this happened."
