The dog may be man's best friend, but tortoises and dogs are a lot chummier these days thanks to a unique conservation project in Western Cape.
Cape Nature, the province's conservation arm, is using dogs to sniff out the most endangered tortoise species in order to design a better tortoise conservation policy.
The Detection Dog Project is the first of its kind in South Africa and involves a two-year-old pooch, Brin, trained to detect the endangered geometric tortoise.
Each time Brin sniffs out a geometric tortoise, she gets a special reward - a game of ball.
"Brin loves her ball more than anything else in the world, even food," said Cape Nature ecological coordinator Vicki Hudson.
Brin, a Belgian shepherd, received six months of intensive tortoise detection training.
Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package. 
