Sniffer Dogs can hinder police work.

[Jean-Pierre]

Interesting POV

Sniffer Dogs can hinder police work.

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

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

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.

"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 added the dogs, which are trained to detect the smell of dead bodies, have "the potential to cause complications in an inquiry".

"There is an urgent need to have national policy on their training, accreditation and deployment," it concluded.


The review uses a kidnap investigation to highlight how dogs have tied up valuable police time.

The animals detected 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.


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.

http://news.sky.com/story/844071/sniffer-dogs-can-hinder-police-work

[Mr Moderator]

I hope Jean-Pierre doesn't mind but I believe this topic is worthy of its own thread.

[Angelo222]

I notice that the article is from March 2011 but it just goes to show that the science of cadaver dog investigative work was already in an almighty mess so who knows what the truth was in 2007.   My own view has always been that there are far too many external influences for cadaver dog alerts to ever be taken as anything more than a general indication that there might be something worth further investigation.  Mr Grime has always rightly stated that the dog alerts on their own prove nothing.

[AnneGuedes]

http://www.acpo.police.uk/documents/uniformed/2011/201103UOPDogsMoG1.1.pdf
pp. 111-155

[Jean-Pierre]

Very interesting Ann.  And also instructive that Martin Grime allowed his APCO licences to lapse at around the time of the Jersey gig (with due reference that this IS from the daily wail).   

snipped:  "Eddie the sniffer dog - the animal that had supposedly found the 'scent of death' in the Portuguese flat where Madeleine McCann disappeared - no longer had a licence for UK police forensic work when Harper started using him in Jersey. Eddie, whose owner, Martin Grime, was paid £93,600 for less than five months' work, triggered the first excavations by barking at a spot where Harper's team then unearthed what was claimed to be part of a child's skull. In fact, as a Kew Gardens expert has now confirmed, it was a piece of coconut shell." snipped


Snipped:  "Yet Grime, who had left South Yorkshire police in July 2007 and was selling his dogs' services through his private business, had failed to keep up the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) licence that certified Eddie as a police 'cadaver dog'.

Grime did have a second sniffer dog, Keela, but its licence expired a fortnight after they arrived in Jersey.

ACPO rules governing UK police dogs state: 'Dog and handler teams that fail to remain in-licence are deemed "not competent".'

Grime admitted to The Mail on Sunday that the dog's licence had lapsed. He said: 'After I retired, my dogs were tested according to my own standards which are more stringent than ACPO's. But Jersey is not in the UK, so they were in their rights to employ whoever they wanted.' He said his fees were 'all agreed' and that he had given Jersey a 'discount'.

Asked about the 'human remains' found by Eddie that turned out to be coconut, Grime said bizarrely: 'People aren't right 100 per cent of the time. Otherwise they wouldn't be human.'" snipped

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1217863/Bungled-Jersey-child-abuse-probe-branded-20million-shambles.html

[Angelo222]

Very good posts Anne and Jean Pierre.   

[Benice]

I notice that the article is from March 2011 but it just goes to show that the science of cadaver dog investigative work was already in an almighty mess so who knows what the truth was in 2007.   My own view has always been that there are far too many external influences for cadaver dog alerts to ever be taken as anything more than a general indication that there might be something worth further investigation.  Mr Grime has always rightly stated that the dog alerts on their own prove nothing.

Agreed.   My sentiments entirely.

[Angelo222]

Even a dog can have a bad day?   

[John]

Even a dog can have a bad day?   

They also say every dog has his day!   

[Luz]

Interesting POV

Sniffer Dogs can hinder police work.

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

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

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.

"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 added the dogs, which are trained to detect the smell of dead bodies, have "the potential to cause complications in an inquiry".

"There is an urgent need to have national policy on their training, accreditation and deployment," it concluded.


The review uses a kidnap investigation to highlight how dogs have tied up valuable police time.

The animals detected 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.


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.

http://news.sky.com/story/844071/sniffer-dogs-can-hinder-police-work

Very convenient for the McCann, but I doubt that terrorist, drug and/or people's traffickers' police will be pleased with that crap of an article. 

[Angelo222]

I have to agree about the dog tests Luz.   They were a sham from beginning to end and to think someone even got paid tens of thousands of pounds for it.  I hope Eddie and Keela got a bone each for their efforts.

[Carana]

I notice that the article is from March 2011 but it just goes to show that the science of cadaver dog investigative work was already in an almighty mess so who knows what the truth was in 2007.   My own view has always been that there are far too many external influences for cadaver dog alerts to ever be taken as anything more than a general indication that there might be something worth further investigation.  Mr Grime has always rightly stated that the dog alerts on their own prove nothing.

I agree with you on that.

The problem, I find, is that the dogs have become a major bone of contention. They are either deemed useless or are always deemed to have found the prior presence of a real dead body.

I can't agree with either.

Dogs can be a great asset to narrow down a search area. Their alerts may be correct (from the dog's perspective), but it is then up to the police to eliminate potential other irrelevant reasons for an alert.

Informally asking if anyone was aware of a previous death doesn't make the grade for me in terms of rigorously excluding other possibilities.


Swindells says: "The best thing about using a dog to detect cadavers, as opposed to machines, is that dogs have the ability to think. But that's also the worst thing about using dogs." This means that cadaver dogs appear to have sufficient intelligence to recognise a corpse across a range of environmental conditions. However, they can also be distracted, for example by methane produced naturally in a peat bog (corpses also produce methane).

One indisputable advantage dogs have over machines is that they can quickly narrow down a search when a large area has to be covered. Adee Schoon of Leiden University, a scientific adviser to the canine department of the Netherlands National Police Agency, sums up the attitude of many who work with human cadaver dogs: "We use dogs as intelligent samplers, to tell us where to look further."

So, although death dogs may not always get it right, their discoveries can make the difference between solving a crime and leaving dark secrets buried for ever.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-csi-death-dogs-sniffing-out-the-truth-behind-the-crimescene-canines-835047.html

[AnneGuedes]

I have to agree about the dog tests Luz.   They were a sham from beginning to end and to think someone even got paid tens of thousands of pounds for it.  I hope Eddie and Keela got a bone each for their efforts.

Angelo, you'll perhaps change your mind about scents and the canine olfactory system, reading a study (PhD) on the utility on training aids of STU 100 (scent transfer unit), a device the PJ asked the US to lend them but didn't or couldn't arrive on time (?).
You can read from p. 100 (pdf) or 83 (real page number) on.
On p. 111 (94) there's a table with the main chemical compounds that form humain remains scent.
You will see also how complex training efficiently a dog is and, I suppose, admit that Prof Harrison had some scientific reason to recommend the British dogs who came to PDL and to send them first thing to the 5A. You'll see that any suggestion about dogs being trained with pork meat you can buy around the corner and let decay is ridiculous.
There are besides very interesting remarks on putrescine and cadaverine.
http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1382&context=etd

[AnneGuedes]

Sent by Carana :
dogs have the ability to think

That's surely breaking news !

[Carana]

Angelo, you'll perhaps change your mind about scents and the canine olfactory system, reading a study (PhD) on the utility on training aids of STU 100 (scent transfer unit), a device the PJ asked the US to lend them but didn't or couldn't arrive on time (?).
You can read from p. 100 (pdf) or 83 (real page number) on.
On p. 111 (94) there's a table with the main chemical compounds that form humain remains scent.
You will see also how complex training efficiently a dog is and, I suppose, admit that Prof Harrison had some scientific reason to recommend the British dogs who came to PDL and to send them first thing to the 5A. You'll see that any suggestion about dogs being trained with pork meat you can buy around the corner and let decay is ridiculous.
There are besides very interesting remarks on putrescine and cadaverine.
http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1382&context=etd

Was the STU-100 machine used in PdL?