Why ?
http://mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MARK_HARRISON.htm23/07/2007
Madeleine McCann Search Decision Support Document
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Search Asset Profile
Victim recovery dogs (VRDs) are also known as body or cadaver dogs. They are used in many countries to assist the police in locating concealed human remains. In the UK, police dogs are used that are trained and licensed to a national standard.
Pig carcasses are used to train the dogs in the UK as it is not legal to use human cadavers. This is an established training method and enables the dogs to successfully detect human remains in operational case work.
Enhanced training to produce a EVRD.
The training of a VRD provides an alert response using Ivan Pavlov's theory of producing a conditioned reflex, in this case barking, to the presence of detected decomposing human/pig flesh, bone, body fluid and blood. The dog will bark, whether or not it is able to get to the source of the scent. The benefit of this reflex is that the dog will respond whenever the target scent is present.
This enables the dog to be used in an investigative role, assisting experts in other fields, such as, geophysics
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The PJ knew the cadaver dog would react to pig as well as human remains.