Our Team
Meet Our Dogs
K9 Newt
Newton Hoffmann-McConnell is a Fox Red Labrador Retriever. He is from a Pointing Lab lineage of hunting dogs out of Radar Kennel in Ohio, USA. Newt came home with Kris and her husband as a puppy in 2019 and immediately began learning the sound of a training clicker means treats.
Enthusiastic and constantly over-the-top, Newt stand out from other dogs as a high-drive sniffing machine. We’ve been told that he has more drive than both bite-sport Malinois (a.k.a. Mal-i-gators) and the average police dog - and we believe it! He's got enough attitude to metaphorically say "No, human, you're wrong! The scent it over here." He also has the muscle to match that energy, and has only ever met one dog that he couldn't outrun.
Newt is simply amazing. He can tell us if a site has old turtle scent or if there is no turtle smell and therefore no population. He knows what vegetation wood turtles will use but box turtles avoid. He remembers where there was scent last visit and will return in case the turtle is still there. He can find turtles in holes deep into the river bank and has alerted on hibernaculi. He is never wrong in the field.
Newt is happiest when working, and only acts like a normal dog at home after a long day of searching. Outside of field season he bosses us around by shoving and barking, and insists on daily hikes, practice searches, early mornings, and lots of peanut butter. Food motivated but absolutely obsessed with retrieving, Newt would rather fetch than eat.
Newt has experience finding wood turtles, eastern spadefoot toads, spotted turtles, eastern box turtles, and gopher tortoise burrows. He has worked on the occasional missing pet tortoise case, and is the ONLY dog in the world trained to find GPS collars years after they fell off fishers.
K9 April Showers
Katalyst’s April Showers Bring Salamanders is our new prodigy and trainee. She comes from a Connecticut, USA, kennel that specializes in working dogs for detection and agility. Half of April's siblings are training to become airport security dogs (TSA). We’re so glad Kate let us be part of the Katalyst Kennel family!
April has amazing drive and is insistent when she is near the target - she jumped up a pine tree once to get to a source hung 5 ft off the ground! She's teaching us a lot about odor concentration, from pools of intense odor gliding upstream across the top of the water to the tiny scent plume of insect eggs laid on a single blade of grass. When she turned a year old we had to reduce the surface area of our practice scent targets because she was finding them too quickly. We expect big things from this little dog.
April has experience finding eastern box turtles, wood turtles, and the burrows of gopher tortoises.
Meet Our Bipeds
Dr. Kristine Hoffmann
Kris is a herpetologist with a soft spot for Spotted Turtles and Mole Salamanders. She has a Bachelor of Science in Biology from The University of Massachusetts, a Masters of Science in Wildlife Ecology & Conservation from the University of Florida, and a PhD and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the University of Maine in Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology.
Kris has worked as faculty for the University of Virginia’s College at Wise and St. Lawrence University, and as adjunct faculty at State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Kris is an active member of the Conservation Dog Alliance and leads Turtle Detection Boot Camp.
Bram McConnell
Bram is our kennel manager, web guru, and head chef. Bram has a degree in Computer Information Systems from the University of Maine and works full time as a computer engineer. K9 April makes it a point to sit on his lap when ever she has the opportunity.