Another Benefit form the Dogs’ Strong Senses
written by: larabrooke
We all know that dogs have great senses, way stronger than the human ones, but a new study from this month, March 2014, amazes us with the information it provided.A team from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), dealing with research activities, has been working on a study and determined how dogs can find explosives like Composition C-4 for example. This research found the these animals react best to the real explosive, this creates a doubt in the usage of products made to imitate the scent of C-4 for the training purposes. This new information is a result of a hard work, and the contract for this research is for four years.
John Goodpaster gives us information about the process, he explains that the dogs were trained to achieve these results, to find actual explosives.The work of these well-trained detector dogs is effective and proven, and the study wants to find more information, to improve its work and to find out which chemical compounds cause the dog to sense a specific explosive and to give some alert.
Previous researches have given information and have supposed that some specific non-explosive chemicals released by Composition C-4 can cause a dogs to give an alert, and that these substances could be used for training of dogs in place where real explosives can be found. This is an important step of the improving of people’s safety.
At the beginning of the study, the researchers from the university found that the non-explosive chemicals emitted by C-4 mimics can be found in a lot of everyday different plastic objects. There were many objects that were included in the testing, like PVC pipes, movie tickets, plastic bags, plastic wrapping, etc. Some of the tested objects emitted significant levels of the compound recommended training dogs.
The researched decided to test the senses of the dogs in the second phase of the project. 33 trained dogs were used to see if they would actually respond to the compounds.
The performed trials showed that these animals did not respond in any meaningful way to some of the odor compounds from the C-4. The dogs seem to be very smart or very sensible, they cannot be easily fooled, and they are very specific. The study revealed that if they are trained on the full scent, they will find actual explosives only.
And because they are very specific in what they find, the study can be really helpful in court, the dogs detection can be used as evidence; it can resolve some of today’s issues.
The team performing the research recommended that the training should be done with actual explosives. As we know, there is technology for seeking and detecting explosives, but dogs may be a better option, because they are fast, have strong sensitivity and can search for many objects.
They are not that hard to be trained, this means that their potential can be improved with the proper training, and may be soon there will be more studies like this one, encouraging and with great results.
