My first encounter with African wild dogs was one of them.

It happened in Mana Pools, Zimbabwe, one of those extraordinary places where Africa still feels truly wild.

Until then, I knew African wild dogs from photographs, documentaries and books. But seeing them in their natural environment was completely different.

And I was particularly lucky.

There were pups.

It was the interaction within the pack.

The pups were playing, chasing one another and constantly interacting with the adults. There was an energy around them that was completely different from watching lions resting in the shade or a leopard quietly observing its surroundings.

For a photographer, it was almost overwhelming.

There seemed to be something happening everywhere.

One moment I was following a pup through the camera, the next two animals started playing somewhere else. I quickly realised that photographing wild dogs requires anticipation as much as reaction.

But after a while, I also stopped thinking only about photographs.

I simply watched.

Every animal has its own pattern of black, brown, white and golden markings. But what fascinates me even more is their social structure.

They live and hunt cooperatively, raise their pups together and depend heavily on the pack.

Unfortunately, they are also particularly vulnerable to habitat fragmentation. Because packs travel across very large areas, they frequently move beyond protected areas and come into contact with roads, people, domestic animals and disease. Conservation therefore depends not only on individual reserves but also on maintaining connected landscapes.

They move.

When they become active, everything can happen very quickly. Fast shutter speeds and responsive autofocus help, but I have learned that understanding what the animals are doing is often even more important.

Interaction tells the story.

Those are often the photographs that bring me back to the experience years later.

They can never be guaranteed — and perhaps that is part of what makes an encounter so special.

When you finally see a pack appearing from the bush, there is an immediate sense of excitement.

For me, that first experience in Mana Pools changed African wild dogs from an animal I wanted to photograph into an animal I genuinely wanted to understand better.