For those among us that have heard the saying 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks', it's clear to see that Kiwi animal behaviourist Mark Vette hasn't. Either that or he just doesn't care.
He's the man who once sent the internet into a frenzy by teaching 12 SPCA dogs how to drive a car, but now Mr Vette has taken that to a new level -- around 3000ft.
In his UK television series entitled 'Dogs Might Fly' Mr Vette has once again defied logic and trained three shelter dogs to take to the skies at the helm of a plane.
The series, funded by Oxford Scientific Films, was already a project Mr Vette says he was considering before being contacted by a television executive around two years ago.
"They called me from their lunch meeting and said they loved driving dogs, and said, 'Can you teach a dog how to fly a plane for me?'" Mr Vette explained.
"I said we were actually trying to do it in NZ."
Mr Vette says despite the initial teething issues with the UK's CAA, he and the rest of the production team were eventually able to get clearance for the stunt.
"You can imagine the meetings with the CAA that we had at the start, when we told them we wanted a dog to fly -- they laughed and sent us out of the office several times," he said.
"There was a lot of scepticism that is for sure. There was various behaviour from people over here in England saying there is no way, they've got the brains of a two or three-year-old so there is no way that they are ever going to be able to do this."
From there, Vette and his team -- including other well-known animal behaviourists -- whittled 12 dogs down to three in a six-part documentary series, and trained them for 18 weeks.
"The main things we looked for with those dogs were, can they deal with calisthenics stimulus -- so air drop and turbulence and those sorts of things in an aircraft."
"Also we looked at did they have the smarts to do it? And did they have confidence and a bond with their trainers?"
Sitting in the captain's seat, specially built for the dogs, their co-pilot took the plane up to around 3000ft where they then took the controls and did a figure-8 manoeuvre.
While the UK has not seen the full final episode of the series yet, there has been a video released of one of the dog's mid-flight as a tease.
Mr Vette told Newshub the programme is also likely heading to New Zealand at some point, and he says above all, he hopes it changes the way people perceive shelter dogs.
"Shelter dogs are clever too; there is no need to go to a puppy-mill when you can head to your local shelter."
Newshub.
