A Sniffer Dog
Sniffer dog is a dog that is trained to and works at using its senses to detect substances such as explosives, illegal drugs, or blood. Hunting dogs that search for game and search dogs that search for missing humans are generally not considered detection dogs. There is some overlap in cases like cadaver dogs that detect human remains.
Those Amazing Sniffer Dogs
By Radha Deep
A sniffer dog uses his keen sense of smell to detect the presence, or follow trails of mainly explosives, blood and drugs. These dogs get a remarkable level of training to also detect human remains, plants, animals, firearms, mold, food remains and phones!
Photo: national-army-museum.ac.uk
The training is done to such perfection that dogs are able to distinguish the distinct smells of all the items mentioned above and can also detect them when present in a combination.
For instance if a person tries to get away with drugs camouflaged with the strong smell of eucalyptus oil or disinfectants, hidden well in his clothing, a dog can still find out that presence of drugs and stop him!
Some dogs are sharp enough to sniff out and detect bloodstains more than a decade old! Labradors, German Shepherds, Siberian Huskies are all popular sniffer dogs and are always in great demand because of this.
Meanwhile scientists are involved in creating an electronic sniffing device that can "smell" as well as a dog. According to CNN, Yushan Yan, a professor in the University of California and his team are involved with such a project.
The device will be hand held and will prove to be an asset in airport security, baggage checking and in military operations, according to Yan. The advantage, according to the professor, is that the device can be deployed without investing time and money on training and maintenance, as one would do with dogs.
With the successful completion of this project will the demand for sniffer dogs decline? This we will have to wait and watch…..
While electronic noses wait to jon the fray of sniffing dogs, there are attempts to create an "ideal" sniffer dog. Seven cloned sniffer dogs, the first of its kind in the world were born in South Korea in 2007. They are called "Toppy" meaning Tomorrow’s Puppy and are born of three surrogate dams in a $300 million project funded by the state.
The "Toppies" seem to possess all the hereditary qualities and behavior that together single out an efficient sniffer dog, according to Lee Ho the South Korean Customs Representative.
The dogs are reported to have started working after an initial round of training and it had been easier to train them than the usual sniffer dogs, says the Repesentative.
Lee Byung-Chun is credited with a fundamental role in carrying out the dog cloning successfully when he helped create a 36 month old Afghan Hound’s duplicate. The nuclei of the somatic cells of a Golden Retriever have also gone into the cloning process.
Meanwhile, in another part of the globe, a "Super Sniffing Dog" was developed. That’s right! The Russian Aeroflot Airlines has its very own breeding center. It has now helped develop a sniffer dog to detect bombs and drug trafficking in the Moscow Airport. The dog is a cross between a Turkmen Jackal and a Siberian Husky!
It took the breeding center an awesome 27 years to perfect this dog! According to the Airlines, this special dog is superior in its sniffing qualities as compared to the normally accepted breeds of sniffer dogs.
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