Please join us at our monthly chapter meeting on Monday, October 12, 2026 at 7:00 PM when we will welcome speaker Amanda Ott and a very special guest to present a talk on: Working Dogs for Conservation.

Working Dogs for Conservation in Missoula, Montana (wd4c.org) works with wildlife partners around the world to train dogs for detection, tracking and discrimination to address urgent ecological issues. Amanda will talk about how dogs can detect weeds before they break the surface, animals that live below ground, organisms invisible to the human eye, and even how they help with anti-poaching in Africa. As a bonus, they will demo their own detection dog’s skills during the presentation.

Amanda has been the Canine Team Training Coordinator at Working Dogs for Conservation since 2021. They received their B.S. in Animal Science from Texas A&M University. They have been involved in dog sports, training, and medicine including work with exotics where they became passionate about science-based animal training. Amanda obtained the title of Certified Professional Dog Trainer and owned their own dog training and dock diving business. Including time as the Canine Team lead for Travis County Search they have over 17 years’ experience training detection dogs working on over 25 different targets. Amanda has a passion for utilizing a dogs unique personality to help shape the dogs training and future targets as well as giving clear communication between the dog and handler.

The meeting will be held in Room 110 in the Interdisciplinary Sciences Building (ISB) on the University of Montana campus. The building lies on the south end of campus on Beckwith Avenue between Maurice and Mansfield avenues.