Whanganui Kelpie/Dingo cross dog, Zeus, owned by Mr. Chris Moisa has become the first dog to be ever trained to pick weeds from a vegetable garden.
Trained over a period of two years under a, now copyrighted, strict regime, Zeus is now capable of distinguishing between lettuce, silverbeet, onions, celery and kumara from common garden weeds.
“He picks them and puts them to the side until he reaches ten,” says Mr. Moisa a retired secondary teacher and now a renowned crime writer and award-winning artist. “Then I reward him with a small treat. He is brilliant as he does not need urging or close supervision.” Zeus is a seven-year Australian sheepdog. Mr. Moisa said that Zeus got easily bored until he taught him how to carry out this complex task. He now loans him to his neighbours and to friends. “I don’t know if it will spoil him,” said Mr. Moisa. “When I take him out on walks it seems everyone wants to pat him.”
Massey University is carrying experiments to verify the dog’s abilities and to determine whether it is specific to the dog or the breed. “If it's specific to the dog they are talking about cloning him,” Mr. Moisa was reported in saying when interviewed by Country Calendar for an upcoming episode.
Zeus and Mr. Moisa will be at the Otamatea Reserve in Whanganui giving a demonstration of Zeus amazing skills this afternoon from 4-5pm.