Eddie was not trained to pick up potential evidence with his mouth. Another cadaver dog was not deployed to validate Eddie's alerts. Keela's alerts neither corroborated nor invalidated potential cadaver odour in the areas Eddie barked.
I'm not interested in what Perlin thinks he can do with a mixed & incomplete DNA test result. Confirming the presence of a speck of Madeleine's DNA would add nothing to the investigation imo.
Not that it makes a blind bit of difference but ...
I watched two episodes of Dog Patrol, between 4 am and 5 am last morning. One of them had yesterday's most heartwarming story.
There was a small dog, a terrier. It was unwanted and due to be destroyed. It was on 'death row'.
For whatever unexplained reason, the terrier was rescued, and trained up for police service. It is now a drug detection dog, apparently quite good according to its handler.
The video showed the dog scampering across a conveyor belt with numerous incoming packages.
AFAIK, terriers are not the dog of choice for police or customs, but this terrier was keen.
The dog hit on an interesting package. The terrier did not sit down, nor did it bark at the package.
The package was roughly the same size as the terrier. The dog had one attempt at picking the pack up in its jaws, then a second go. On the 3rd attempt the dog managed to grab the package, ark its neck upward, and triumphantly able to display its prize.
The package was confirmed by humans as a drug shipment.
Nota bene. There is no standard signal for a dog alert.