Police Dogs Can Tell Identical Twins Apart By Scent

What’s the News: You might think that identical twins have an advantage when it comes to crime—with the same DNA, who could tell them apart? But new research with a squad of scent-trained Czech police dogs reveals that even identical twins have their own individual smells, even if they live in the same house and eat the same food.

How the Heck:

• Scent line-ups for identifying suspects are regularly used in the Czech Republic, Russia, Denmark, the Netherlands, and several other European countries. Trained dogs are provided with a scent from the scene of a crime and then sniff out the matching scent from sweat samples taken from suspects.
• The researchers took sweat samples from two sets of identical twins and two sets of fraternal twins (whose status they verified with DNA testing), as well as plenty of samples from unrelated children. All the samples were taken in the same room and with the same scientist present, so background odors wold cancel out.
• Then, 10 trained German Shepherds, police dogs used solely for identifying suspects by scent, were put through a total of 120 scent line-ups by police officers who had no knowledge of which pads were which.
• In every single trial, the dogs correctly identified the individuals they were seeking, even when an individual’s identical twin was also in the line-up.

Read the rest here:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/06/17/police-dogs-can-tell-identical-twins-apart-by-scent/

Your First Track

Tracking is a great game to play with your dog. Any age dog or puppy can be started on tracking.


Your First Track

"What is TRACKING?"

Well, a dog is "tracking" when he is following the scent trail or disturbed vegetation scent, left by a person (or other animal) that has traveled along a certain route. As stated in the American Kennel Club Tracking Regulations, the purpose of a tracking test "is to demonstrate the dog's ability to recognize and follow human scent, a skill that is useful in the service of mankind. Tracking, by nature, is a vigorous, noncompetitive outdoor sport. Tracking tests demonstrate the willingness and enjoyment of the dog in its work, and should always represent the best in sportsmanship and camaraderie by the people involved."

Tracking is a natural behavior for dogs. The teaching of tracking is itself very instructive. At the novice levels the dog is started at the beginning of the track, and the dog is encouraged to sniff around to identify the scent to be followed. Because the direction is established the dog should be able to (with training) pick out the correct trail to follow. Depending upon the style being taught the dog might not actually follow the "footsteps" of the person. Instead the dog may follow the scent trail which may drift away from the actual track.

My greyhound is a careful foot step to foot step tracker. My German Shepherd tracks at a run. They keep my life interesting.

The tracking handler’s motto is "Trust your dog", if there is any doubt you MUST believe that the dog is doing the right thing: - don't forget you can't track, you don't understand the circumstances the dog is working under.

Tracking

Sam and Java track. The Java video is just a short bit of her working.

Sam.

Java.