You could do this at home with one of those ant colony devices they sell in hobby stores.  Ants love sugar. Soak fools gold in sugar.  This is called Iron Pyrite.  It is fairly easy to aquire. The colony will import the fools gold into their nest as food.  Notice how it is stowed in the nest.      With this knowledge, go to gold country and search for an ant colony.  You do the same training exercise.  Soon enough, the ants learn to find gold along rivers thinking that the color is associated with sugar. They begin gathering flakes of gold and stowing it in their nests.  You return to this nest with your trusty metal detector many months later.  After a few digs you might uncover enough gold to make it interesting.  A new hobby is born.  Goldmining with ants. There are other animals that one could trained much like a dog in the same way. Bait and Switch is what its called.  

     How about a search and rescue moose? With those incredible scent detection nostrils a moose could locate lost hunters carrying a pack and supplies to the distressed.  Horses also have uncanny ability to find lost children.  One just has to trust the animal to search in his own perculiar way.  He could carry water and food, medical supplies and warm clothing to the lost. The horse could be taught to kneel and allow a person to mount  thus performing the rescue entirely on his own.  That's a good boy.

   Birds of prey like the bald eagle could be trained to find the lost and disabled in wilderness areas. Their keen eyesight and ease of flight could aid human rescuers in locating children who have wandered away much more rapidly than the technique used today. One well trained eagle could circle the disabled until the rescue party arrives. Even Golden Eagles could be used. Look to the Saudis for instruction on how to train these birds. They have generations of experience.

The redwoods is where I lived for a few years mining for gold. Roland had given me a gold claim he was saving for his boys. They were not interested in the hard labor required to be successful.

The first thing I did was buy a gold pan and a Stroh ax which is the best Swedish made ax in the world. I applied for Food Stamps. I supplied myself with enough victuals to last for a few weeks. I lashed everything into my packframe.  I caught a ride to Helena where the North Fork of the Trinity River flows down from the Trinity Alps. I staked out my claim according to the rules. I made camp and hoisted my food into the trees.  It was not long before the bears picked up the scent.