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Our favourite decay detection dog is finally feeling better.

Sika is our principal arboricultural consultant’s decay detection dog. She is specially trained to assist with detecting tree-decay fungi on arboricultural surveys and is especially useful on woodland management surveys and tree surveys on rural estates.

Raised on the steep slopes of the South Pennines, Sika is used to all sorts of rugged terrain but in the middle of last year she was out with a friend and chased a ball over a low cliff, dislocating her hip and giving everyone a fright.

The vet tried to relocate her hip (two times) but, unfortunately, it wouldn’t stay in the socket. Skip a few sentences if you’re feeling squeamish, but read on to hear how our amazing canine decay detector recovered in time for Christmas…

Poor old Sika had to have what’s called a Femoral Head Ostectomy. In this operation, the vet chopped off the top of the very top bit of her femur – the whole of her leg was not attached to the pelvis anymore. It’s pretty scary-sounding stuff, but dogs are amazing healers. At first, the muscles of the dog’s leg hold the femur in place, the socket scabs over, and then over time scar tissue creates a cushion in the empty joint socket. Eventually, the combination results in pain-free mobility for most dogs who have this surgery. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing getting Sika back to health.

Ivan Button explains:

A few months later she started getting back to business. In October she was waking and running just like before and spent some time out brushing up on her decay scenting skills. This year she is looking forward to joining arboricultural consultants on their surveys again (when invited!) and we are looking forward to sharing more information with everyone about how Ivan actually trained Sika in the first place.

Sika can sniff out a wide range of UK tree decay-inducing pathogens, including Kretzschmaria deusta and Meripilus Giganteus. She can also sniff out a whole host more than those two, as you can see from the last shot in the video below. If you’ve not seen Sika’s arboricultural survey skills in action before then do check out the video now. There is music on this video so please mute your speakers or turn your sound down if you prefer not to hear it. The fullscreen button is located next to the volume icon.