Joshua Gilson

This position required good organizational skills which I had acquired in my previous fields of work and in a low stress environment I found i was able to handle that aspect of the job with ease. My responsibilities and daily activities included general stock counts everyday, feeding schedules and delivery to stock, picking up an any ailing stock and treating of ailments, any general stock work, vermin control, checking equipment and land, making sure grazing was being rotated appropriately and fences where all being maintained as well as overseeing or conducting any extra responsibilities that come up day to day.

During this period of working for the Glen KIng Trust on Holwell Farm i started working as a general laborer. I learnt a lot from this position and was exposed to many different skills during this time. my daily duties included counting cattle daily, reporting any ailments, treating ailments, general cattle work such as; vaccinations, dosing, tagging branding, dipping etc...

I was responsible for general maintenance which included road maintenance, equipment maintenance and working facility maintenance. This exposed me to skills such as operating machinery, welding, fencing, general physical labour, building bridges for heavy machinery.

During this period i worked my way up to the position of assistant manager and was called apron to make more decisions on my own and be more intuitive when it came to identifying any problems and solving them.

My experience in the working k9 industry dates back from late 2019 up until the end of 2022. I worked with a company called Kilo 9 Academy for the duration of this period although I did have the opportunity to work with other trainers and handlers. From 2019 up until 2021 my work with them was purely volunteer based and spent the whole of 2022 working for them as a trainer and a director of the company. We worked with dogs mainly in the conservation field although we worked with dogs in other fields as well such as search and rescue and personal protection jobs. Some of the roles carried out during my time there are listed below.

• Developed and trained working dogs in all disciplines in the security industry; apprehension and patrol work, detection dogs and tracking dogs.
• Worked in the field as an anti poaching ranger with apprehension, detection and tracking dogs.
• Nursed, raised and developed a litter of nine puppies that went on to work in the industry in different fields and two going into private homes with good families.
• Caretaking and administering first aid to dogs staying in the kennels and in the field.
• Basic behavioral shaping and development of dogs in the kennels and board and train dogs.
• Construction of temporary kennels while main kennels of facility where under construction.
• Feeding and exercising of dogs.
• Training of handlers, ranger handlers and antipoaching teams working with and around K9s.
• Transport of K9s and site handovers with management and teams of K9s being deployed to posts.
• Instructing on seminars and courses that involve k9 and antipoaching directives.

Throughout my career in conservation I was fortunate enough to be put in positions where I was working very closely with individuals that excelled in the field and where managing and leading a unit. As a result of this I was quickly identified as someone capable of filling leadership and management roles. I was put in many different management positions in my early career as an antipoaching ranger and gained an ocean of knowledge when it came to running security operations, dealing with team mates and employees, data capturing, presenting data and dealing with clients. I found myself continuously placed back in management roles even when I was fulfilling other roles. When i was working as an instructor on antipoaching courses I was posted to manage posts and operations in nearby areas inbetween courses. And again as I transitioned into the K9 training field I was again asked to fulfill a management role in the Kalahari, where my stay there was extended from a month to two months and then being asked at a later stage to again return and manage for the month of december as the ownership and general management where worried that the farm was under threat during the holiday season and where extremely happy with the prior work I had done.

I was exposed to many different aspects of presenting, developing and planning training as well as creating training material. Being part of the training department and delivering training to aspiring individuals and individuals already very experienced in the antipoaching and security industry really held me to a different standard as i was an example to everyone i encountered and had to back up everything i was saying and speaking. I was tasked with organizing courses and organizing equipment for courses, writing of course material and organizing course schedules and activities, i carried out admin responsibilities before during and after courses with inducting trainees and processing them once they had dropped out or completed training, i conducted background checks and medical checks and acquired important information that could be required during the courses, i was required with presenting material in all subjects on the courses but my main expertise roles where in firearms, physical training and operations tactics. i also carried out basic first aid on trainees and me and one of my instructor colleagues even saved a trainees life who was having a heart attack. I was tasked with public relations whenever our training courses would involve moving out into the field of operation and game reserves that we would use for training exercises. I learnt effective ways to achieve a knowledge transfer over a limited space of time which was an art I became very passionate about.

During my time as an antipoaching course instructor i also conducted nationally accredited firearms training on the courses and to private walk in clients. On the antipoaching courses i processed the trainees firearm competency training and theory work as well as submitting files and paperwork. I also conducted job specific firearms training for trainees and rangers already in the field that came to me for retraining, these where drills and tactics that i designed based on my experience in the field and what skills i felt each ranger would require to call apon in their specific position. With civilian walk in client i conducted basic competency training and theory work. This included teaching theory work invigilating and marking theory tests as well as conducting live drills on the range and marking of scores on those drills.

During my time as an antipoaching course instructor i also filled the rolle as front of house secretary for the training office as they had recently lost their previous secretary and did not have a replacement yet and so i decided to volunteer while they searched for a replacement. This position exposed me to allot of new skills and am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to experience it. I was able to gain a ton of public relations skills which although was already a strength of mine was helpful at the time having spent most of my time in the bush at that point in my career, it was also very positive in developing my organizational skills which translated to other jobs down the line and being able to carry out tasks more effectively and strategically. This also helped my computer skills allot and improved my typing exponentially.

This position is where I gained my most valuable experiences. This role included fulfilling basic antipoaching patrols and is the foundation any antipoaching operation relies on the most. This time was spent doing extended foot patrols and living out in the bush and learning the environment you are operating in as extensively as possible as the poachers you are up against are all almost certainly experts in the environment. Waylays where an integral part of gathering information on movements in the area and catching criminals unaware and off guard as this gave us the best opportunities to make successful and safe arrests. Vehicle patrols where also a big part of duties during this time and having the presence along fence lines with rangers and dogs and firearms visible to deter potential incursions. I was also fortunate enough to be involved in many community projects during this time and was able to gain new perspective on our task at hand and to see situations from all perspectives and treat people more fairly and justly and always tried to carry over these perspectives in the trainees i instructed when i went on to the training sector.