This week, Kamahi Djordon King has guided a school holiday workshop on creating small camp dogs out of recycled materials.

He says it is a good way to engage young people in art, spark some love for the Northern Territory's unofficial dog, and clean up a community with little options for recycling.

"Camp dogs are quite prevalent in communities but are almost always treated horribly," he said, "they are always in survival mode, always undernourished, always ignored."

"The aim is to put some love back into them."

The workshop began yesterday with nine school-holidayers and piles of recycled paper from the Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts and Culture Centre, old wire, packing beads, single use plastics which would have otherwise headed to landfill and plaster.

Fifteen-year-old Logan Kariko has spent his school holidays on fishing trips with friends and at home with his pet Labrador Jessie.

The long school holiday has been packed with daily activities for young people, but the camp dog workshop was the first to spark curiosity for the Katherine High School student heading into year 10.

He said his aim was to recreate his one-year-old dog, but plans do not always eventuate, he said.

"It doesn't really look like Jessie," he said, "it looks more like a bull terrier."

The group fashioned models out of old wire and filled them with rubbish, before mixing paper and plaster to create the end result. The last step is painting them.

Camp dogs are unique in that no two are the same. Made up of different breeds typical in the area they are found, they are robust, friendly and can be spotted in large numbers in towns and communities right across the Northern Territory.

"Camp dogs are the dogs of the NT, we need to embrace that," Kamahi Djordon King said.

"They are the rubbish cleaners for the most part, but they have beautiful personalities and I feel they deserve a little bit more than what they are currently getting."

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