Sniffer dogs have long been used in the detection of drugs, but Queensland's water authority has found a unique way to put them to work monitoring more than 9,000 kilometres of pipes for leaks.

Four-legged recruits, English Springer spaniels Halo and Danny, have been brought in to help Urban Utilities detect water leaks and so far they have successfully located burst pipes every day they have been in the field.

The dogs may be able to detect a leak up to 1 metre underground and are proving to be much faster and better than their human counterparts.

Urban Utilities spokeswoman Michelle Cull said the dogs were able to pinpoint leaks.

"We may know from our technology there could be a leak, however, we aren't able to always pinpoint the exact location, so that's where the dogs come in — they've got super sensitive noses," Ms Cull said.

Handler Dennis Gannaway said the spaniels were an obvious choice to train for the task.

"There is a very long history in using dogs in finding scents and leaking water, because the chlorine signature is just another target for the dog," Mr Gannaway said.

"The dogs themselves, their reward is not to find the target odour, their reward is just to play with the ball."

Water sniffer dogs Danny and Halo, with Michelle Cull and dog handler Dennis Gannaway. ( Supplied: Queensland Urban Utilities )

'A very close relationship'

Training a dog takes time — six months is spent with a specialist trainer who teaches the dogs the commands and trains them to identify the scent, then another six months with handlers working as a team in the field.

Mr Gannaway said it was a very close relationship.

"What we've trained them, very specifically for is the smell of treated drinking water, so tap water," he said.

"We do a discrimination test with the dogs where they're exposed to rain water, they're exposed to tank water but only rewarded when they indicate drinking water."

The chlorine smell the dogs need to identify comes in an average of just 0.2 to 0.3 milligrams per litre of water and they have to find the scent on top of the smell of the pipe itself.

GPS readout from a tracking day where water leaks were detected in pipelines by the specially trained sniffer dogs. ( Supplied: Queensland Urban Utilities )

When it is time to work, the dogs wear a collar fitted with a radio tracking device.

"We would get a map of area where that pipe is leaking," Mr Gannaway said.

"We start at one end of the search area and send the dogs over that area repeatedly.

"When we are satisfied there is a leak, we triangulate it down onto the leak."

The dogs wear tracking collars to help keep up with them along the pipelines. ( ABC News: Owen Jacques )

Keep the aspect of play very high

The tracking collar revealed that three-year-old Halo could run at about 45 kilometres per hour, and 14-month-old Danny moves at 25 kph.

"They work in bursts of about 20 minutes and within that 20 minutes, they could do anything up to a hectare of land very quickly," Mr Gannway said.

"Generally speaking, I'll do about 20 kilometres in an area in a day in a linear length.

"That's the benefit of these dogs, because they can work incredibly fast in big areas at a very, very high efficiency.

"It really doesn't matter how deep that pipe is, rather how much water is present and how much of their target scent, the gases, the chlorine on the surface, that the dog can detect."

Handler Dennis Gannaway, with Danny the English Springer spaniel, said the dogs had incredible noses. ( ABC News: Julie Hornsey )

Being an English breed the dogs suffered a little in the Queensland humidity, so the animals started early and avoid really hot days.

While the dogs were doing valuable work seeking out the cracks and break in the network, Mr Gannaway said to them it was just a big game.

"We keep the sessions short and sharp, and keep them interested and keep the aspect of play very, very high, so it's always fun," he said.