Look at the eco volunteer opportunities on the painted dog research link on the website - www.painteddog.org

Hi Joanne

In October this year I came across a pack of 17 wild dogs in Lewa Down. Their number is increasing in Kenya on the Laikipia Plateau.

We were very lucky spending over 1 hour with them. Adults and young once were feeding, drinking and playing.

Regards
Elvira

Unfortunately they are very rare wherever they are so it takes a lot of luck. I did a field guide course on Kruger and was there for 3 months (in the park in various places probably 20-30 days). While we were lucky enough to see cheetah (very rare as well) wild dogs move so fast that previous sightings are usually useless. Selous has a larger than usual number of wild dog as they have less hyena which often kill dogs. Kruger is the size of Wales and supports about 350 dogs so wherever you are there is a lot of luck involved. The best thing to do is to go while the dogs are pupping, as this is the only time that you have any chance of predicting where they will be.

Seeing wild dogs anywhere is often a matter of luck. I spent 2 months in the Kruger and still haven't seen wild dog. Not surprising, really, as there are only 400 dogs in the a park of about about 1 million hectares of veld - about the size of Wales. My advice is to come to Kruger and camp for a long period (about R100 a night), rather than go to Botswana and pay R2500 a night! That way you can afford to stay in the south of the park around lower Sabi and Sukusa for the best chance because of the abundance of prey.

We visited Hluhluwe in Sept 2008 in Kwa-zulu Natal, South Africa for 5 days. On 4 of the 5 days we had sightings including one that lasted most the morning. There was a pack of 5 dogs on an Nyala female kill. The park wildlife rangers were very helpful in helping us locate the dogs especially when we communicated our enthusiasm for the species. Most requests seemed to be for help in locating cats (lion, leopard and cheetah), so I think they found our request refreshing.