Dogs have been described as man's best friend for eon's.  Now, they may be the best friends of threatened and endangered animals.

There is a new program at Auburn University using specially trained dogs to help track down specific animals for scientific research.

Three year old Bishop is a black lab with a special job.  He's an Eco-Dog.  Bishop and his nose help researchers track down different kinds of threatened or endangered animals.  Dr. Todd Steury specializes in large carnivores.  He says the biggest problem he has in his research is being able to find the animals to study.  So he started the program on The Plains.

But just how do these dogs track down their specific targets.  They sniff out their scat, or feces.  If the dogs can find the scat, the researchers know the animals they're looking for are in the area.

The Eco-Dogs are great for science, but they have a real world application too.  There is one dog in the program being trained to sniff out certains types of pine tree fungus.  That's a big deal in the timber industry.