Another view of dog evidence

[debunker]

Report: Sniffer Dogs Hindering Cop Probes

Share Comments7:35am UK, Thursday March 24, 2011

Gerard Tubb, Sky News correspondent



Police sniffer dogs used to find missing people and dead bodies "urgently" need better training and monitoring, according to an official report.



Sniffer dog Eddie was relieved of his police duties after complicating investigations


The Government's National Policing Improvement Agency says specialist victim recovery dogs are not trained to approved standards, with no way of gauging their competence.

"There is no consistency in what the dogs can do and how it is done," the report states.

"Furthermore, there is no national standard for accrediting dogs and handlers or record keeping of the success rate they achieve."

The report says the dogs, which are trained to detect the smell of dead bodies, have "the potential to cause complications in an enquiry."


There is an urgent need to have national policy on (police sniffer dogs') training, accreditation and deployment.

National Policing Improvement Agency report
"There is an urgent need to have national policy on their training, accreditation and deployment," it concludes.

One kidnap investigation is highlighted in the report where dogs tied up valuable police time by detecting human remains in old furniture that had been bought from houses where the owner had died.

The use of victim recovery, or cadaver dogs, has proved to be controversial in a number of high-profile cases in recent years.

A South Yorkshire Police spaniel called Eddie was said to have sniffed out the "scent of death" at the Haut de la Garenne children's home in Jersey and the apartment from which Madeleine McCann disappeared in Portugal.

But in both cases nothing more was found and South Yorkshire Police say Eddie is no longer working with them.



Sniffer dogs hindered the police probe into Shannon Matthew's disappearance


The NPIA reviewed the use of the specialist sniffer dogs two years ago, but its report has only now surfaced following a request by Sky News.

Victim recovery dogs from four different police forces were used during searches for kidnapped schoolgirl Shannon Matthews in Dewsbury in West Yorkshire in 2008.

The dogs found evidence of dead bodies, but officers later discovered the corpses were nothing to do with her disappearance.

"The properties searched contained a high level of second-hand furniture bought from dwellings where someone had died," according to the NPIA report.

"This resulted in numerous indications that required further investigation to confirm whether they were connected to the investigation, or to previous owners of the furniture."

The Association of Chief Police Officers told Sky News it was consulting individual police forces and hoped to have national training standards for the dogs later this year.

[AnneGuedes]

The EVRD reacts to residues, volatile molecules, this is the trouble and explains the confusion, like in the Shannon Matthew case.
Eddie died.

[icabodcrane]

The fact remains ...  and will always remain ...  that a cadaver dog alerted in the apartment where a missing child was last seen

You can bone up  ( pardon the pun )  on dogs  ...  you can start endless threads relentlessly presenting  alternative explanations  ...  or denigrating the dogs' abilities generally  ...  or the handler's professionalism ...  or the questionability of the dogs usefulness at all 

And still,  the fact remains ... and will always remain ...  that a cadaver dog alerted in the apartment where a missing child was last seen

You can,  "yeah but ... no but ... yeah but"  forevermore

The fact remains  ...  and will always remain ...  that a cadaver dog alerted in the apartment where a missing child was last seen

There is simply no getting around that stark reality and  the most obvious and logical conclusion to draw from it

[faithlilly]

@ icabodcrane

You forgot to add....and nowhere else.

[icabodcrane]

@ icabodcrane

You forgot to add....and nowhere else.

That's the real sticker for me  ...  why,  if the dog is so unreliable,  wasn't he alerting randomly all over the place ?

...  only where the McCanns were concerned   >@@(*&)

[Angelo222]

@ icabodcrane

You forgot to add....and nowhere else.

That's the real sticker for me  ...  why,  if the dog is so unreliable,  wasn't he alerting randomly all over the place ?

...  only where the McCanns were concerned   >@@(*&)

If you watch the video of the dog going round the different cars you might have noticed that its handler kept bringing the poor mut back to McCann's hire car.  I mean wtf!!  Talk about pointing the dog in a particular direction.  And there was me thinking these tests were unbiased.   Another thing, did you notice the handler put his hand down by the sill of the nearside front door before the dog reacted.  Got to laugh it was so pathetic.

[icabodcrane]

@ icabodcrane

You forgot to add....and nowhere else.

That's the real sticker for me  ...  why,  if the dog is so unreliable,  wasn't he alerting randomly all over the place ?

...  only where the McCanns were concerned   >@@(*&)

If you watch the videop of the dog going round the different cars you might have noticed that its handler kept bringing the poor mut back to McCann's hire car.  I mean wtf!!  Talk about pointing the dog in a particular direction.  And ther e was me thinking these tests were unbiased.   Another thing, did you notice the handler put his hand down by the sill of the nearside front door before the dog reacted.  Got to laugh it was so pathetic.

Martin Grime's impressive credentials,  which includes the  fact that he is Special Advisor to the US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation  and additionally advises Domestic and International Law enforcement agencies  in the deployment of police dogs in the role of homicide investigations,  also makes mention of his expertise in the matter of  'false alerts and cueing'

"My experience as a trainer has shown that false alerts are normally caused by handler cueing. All indications by the dog are preceded by a change in behaviour.  This increases handler confidence in the response. This procedure also stops handlers  'cueing'  and indication.  The dogs are allowed to  'free search'  and investigate areas of interest. The handler does not influence their behaviour otherthan to direct the search"

You see,  Martin Grime is employed by International  Law enforcement agencies to advise on how to ensure dogs are  not   influenced or  'cued'  by their handlers 

[Angelo222]

All promotional material on his website.  If Grimes doesn't deliver his reputation goes down the tubes.  Consequently there is an overriding need to achieve results.  Any idiot can stand at a car and keep calling a dog back. What a charade.   

[icabodcrane]

All promotional material on his website.  If Grimes doesn't deliver his reputation goes down the tubes.  Consequently there is an overriding need to achieve results.  Any idiot can stand at a car and keep calling a dog back. What a charade.   

hmm

Grime is an  'idiot'  ...  and you know more about his job than he does 

OK then ... 

[Angelo222]

All promotional material on his website.  If Grimes doesn't deliver his reputation goes down the tubes.  Consequently there is an overriding need to achieve results.  Any idiot can stand at a car and keep calling a dog back. What a charade.   

hmm

Grime is an  'idiot'  ...  and you know more about his job than he does 

OK then ...

I know that a dog will tell its handler what they want to hear in the right circumstances. I have been training dogs longer than Grimes in all sorts of pursuits so yes I probably do have more experience with dogs.

What you must realise is that this is only a game to a dog, the dog wants to please and the dog wants to get his reward for his performance.  A bit like the circus it really is.

[gilet]

All promotional material on his website.  If Grimes doesn't deliver his reputation goes down the tubes.  Consequently there is an overriding need to achieve results.  Any idiot can stand at a car and keep calling a dog back. What a charade.   

Excellent point. The reality is that what icabodcrane has posted is Grime's own promotional fluff.

[debunker]

@ icabodcrane

You forgot to add....and nowhere else.

That's the real sticker for me  ...  why,  if the dog is so unreliable,  wasn't he alerting randomly all over the place ?

...  only where the McCanns were concerned   >@@(*&)

I have explained this on another thread. It is called serial error.

A dog erroniously responds to a false non cadaver scent specific to the subjects (dogs are no more than 90% accurate and 75% is probably a better estimate). This scent could be anything but it could be spread over many objects. The dog senses that the handler approves ( look at Mr Grime's body language throughout) and temporarily learns to alert to that false scent.

Problems like these are why dog evidence is not certain unless confirmed.

Additionally, cadaver odor is only indicated where both dogs were deployed, Eddie alerted and Keela did not. These circumstances occured few times- much fewer than [ censored word] claim.

[Eleanor]

The Dogs are allowed to Free Search?  Don't make me laugh.  Eddie was just getting fed up with being dragged back.

And as for alerts only from Eddie.  So called Cadaver Dogs do alert to decomposing body fluids from live people.  Cadaver Dog Handlers say this.

[debunker]

Oh good grief, now I've seen it all. A moderator on a message board is more experienced with dogs than a professional handler seconded to the FBI. 

I have a spaniel that has an incredible nose. If I hide a treat in a room somewhere, he is off all over the room trying to catch a whiff. You can see him pass near the place it's hidden and pause then move on elsewhere. He then often goes way off elsewhere before returning to the same spot, this time getting a bit closer. He will often even then go off elsewhere, as though he's looking for the "edges" of the scent and gradually zeroes in.  This is an untrained dog.

Tell D'Andre Lane he's off the hook then...

Scent dogs are probably correct about 4 times out of 5 in real trials.

[Angelo222]

The Dogs are allowed to Free Search?  Don't make me laugh.  Eddie was just getting fed up with being dragged back.

And as for alerts only from Eddie.  So called Cadaver Dogs do alert to decomposing body fluids from live people.  Cadaver Dog Handlers say this.

The more I read about these dogs the less I believe that they are any use as deployed in Portugal where they were out of their comfort zone.  The only real use a cadaver dog is for finding corpses as has been shown with some recent cases.  Anything else and they are useless.