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posted by mrpg on Saturday September 22 2018, @11:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-comment dept.

Submitted via IRC for Fnord666

A new study in the journal Scientific Reports gets to the bottom of it: Why do dogs that are trained to locate poop sometimes find the wrong kind of poop?

[...] In her own work, DeMatteo has successfully used scat-detection dogs to identify the routes traveled by endangered pumas and other reclusive carnivores along a biologically important corridor in Argentina.

Detection dogs are great at determining the presence of specific animals because they can find droppings hidden in grass, droppings that have been rained on and disintegrated into the mud -- or even droppings that have been eaten and then recycled.

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180914100433.htm


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 22 2018, @02:15PM (7 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 22 2018, @02:15PM (#738540) Journal

    What I didn't see addressed, was human input. If the human insists that there is something to find, the dog will cooperate by finding - SOMETHING. Maybe something similar, or maybe just something more interesting to the dog. If, on the other hand, the human is impatient, and not willing to spend time searching, the dog can pick up on that, and decide not to find anything.

     

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  • (Score: 2) by crafoo on Saturday September 22 2018, @03:01PM (5 children)

    by crafoo (6639) on Saturday September 22 2018, @03:01PM (#738549)

    Is there any animal better than a dog? It's kind of amazing how awesome they are.
    I watched the secretary of DHS oversee local police search cars before a ferry boarding. They were explaining How they use the dog to search under the vehicles, and how they occasionally have to hide something for the dogs to find, otherwise they get discouraged and stop looking.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by maxwell demon on Saturday September 22 2018, @05:07PM (3 children)

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday September 22 2018, @05:07PM (#738593) Journal

      Is there any animal better than a dog?

      Depends on the intended task. If you want an animal that carries you over a long distance, a horse should be a better choice.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23 2018, @12:54AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23 2018, @12:54AM (#738708)

        What I really want is a giant chicken I can ride around on.

        • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23 2018, @03:59AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 23 2018, @03:59AM (#738756)

          A dragon - especially one that flies.

          • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday September 23 2018, @04:03AM

            by Reziac (2489) on Sunday September 23 2018, @04:03AM (#738757) Homepage

            That's not your normal flamebait...

            --
            And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 2) by dry on Monday September 24 2018, @02:25AM

      by dry (223) on Monday September 24 2018, @02:25AM (#739042) Journal

      Well pigs are better at sniffing out truffles then dogs, they're also pretty smart, so perhaps better.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Saturday September 22 2018, @07:48PM

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 22 2018, @07:48PM (#738637) Journal

    What I didn't see addressed, was human input

    That's the factor that makes "detection dogs" used for forensic purposes no better than any other woo-woo junk science, and not a credible thing. Especially when abused to "indicate" that a suspect who would otherwise have perfectly good fourth amendment* rights, for example, has, according to a dog's "specially trained handler", indications of having some contraband that just happens to confer probable cause for a search under the current legal atmosphere which somewhat disingenuously allows such shenanigans.

    Human input can be controlled for, making the dogs actually amazingly useful. But when the "handler" is also a cop whose best interest ("get an excuse to search this dirtbag") does not align with the best interests of the subject in question ("innocent until proven guilty and free from illegal search and seizure"), there is no motive for the handler to apply such control, and every motive for them to simply command the dog to "indicate." Bombs, drugs, doesn't much matter; the handler can just decide later what was being indicated, and the dog can't talk** to contradict.

    Also see:
    Research May Increase Judicial Skepticism of Detection Dog Evidence: [animallaw.info]

    under a specific testing scenario [with] no drugs or explosives... most canine teams participating in the study nevertheless alerted to the presence of drugs or explosives when the handlers had reason to believe that a target item had been placed in the environment... A dog’s alert, in other words, should not become an easy means of justifying a search when the handler or an officer involved in the incident has a hunch that something is awry and needs an excuse to take additional action... if the handler passes his hunch to his dog, the dog's alert is not independently bolstering the officer's suspicion.

    Note: Above article specifically says that the dog's abilities are not "junk science", only their use as described above.

    Dog Sniff Line-Ups: Junk Science [theforensicgroup.co.nz]:

    a big argument has erupted over the execution of an apparently innocent man... [Texas] is now in hot water over its continued and questionable use of dogs to identify perpetrators using a dog scent line up. [When a dog] “matches” crime scene scent with suspect’s scent – suspect [is] arrested and charged with heinous crime. The Innocence Project has now got involved because, I believe quite rightly, this is not a scientific method that can be shown to be reliable or reproducible. To my knowledge, there is not a body of well-researched, peer-reviewed scientific literature backing up this method of ID.

    -------
    * In the United States Constitution, amendment four says that no search can be conducted unless a judge has granted permission for the search and specified the person or place to be searched, and exactly what is being searched for. It's somehow both a great tenet of jurisprudence and a sarcastic joke all at the same time.
    ** If dogs could talk, they would certainly tell the truth, imo, in stark contrast to cops, for whom there is no expectation of such (quite the opposite, in fact).