I am now wild dog obsessed. There is no doubt about it. How else can I explain clambouring into the back of the truck every morning for 8 weeks between 3am and 4am!

This week has been a very busy week, with lion call ups and with dog darting. The plan was to put radio collars on 3 additional dogs - at Tembe only one dog has a radio collar, but for their safety to be able to track and check their location and determine whether in danger, more collars were required.

After a bit of a celebration the night before - dinner turned into a celebration of the work with the lions that week - we set off at 3.30am to locate the dogs, and an hour later happily we were successful; they had moved only a little distance from where we had located them the evening before. Three dogs were darted and then the chaos began! One thing I have definitely learnt about wild animals is how strong and determined their adrenalin rush can make them - it's pure Fight or Flight mode in action - and wild dogs are no exception to this.

As there are lions in the area, the drug used for the darting is a light one so that the animal is not on the ground asleep for too long or taking a long time to come around properly - and therefore there is less risk for them, from lions. As we discovered, this also means that their adrenalin can still help them to get up and run even after darting - and they did! After some searching in the bush we located the darted dogs and holding them down, and gripping their ankles just incase they came around again, we fitted the new radio collars.

One dog though had bolted too fast and we were unable to locate her. We monitored the dogs in the morning and afternoon as usual for the next two days, but there was still one dog missing. After two days, the consensus was that there was a high likelihood that the dog had been caught by lions. So there were funny dances and huge grins all around on Saturday morning when on locating the dogs and getting a visual, all of the dogs were there, and all looked well and fit. The dog that had been missing was a little thin, but a few extra meals would resolve that. Wild dogs work closely as a pack and will even feed each other if requested, even the adults. The pack will even help her with food if needed - if a dog behaves submissively to another dog requesting feeding, food will be regurgitated, and so in this way even injured dogs for example have more ability to remain strong and keep up with the pack.

That evening we had another visual of them all together, and as the sun set there were still many smiles all around. A perfect end to the day.