Pubdate: Sun, 08 Feb 2004
Source: Ledger-Enquirer (GA)
Copyright: 2004 Ledger-Enquirer
Contact:  http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/enquirer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/237
Author: Larry Gierer

SUPER SNIFFERS

"A pig could do it, but they grow to about 300 pounds. A cat, yes, but try 
to keep one disciplined. Besides, society accepts dogs and they socialize 
with people."

The number on the back of the trading card is impressive. It's 257. That's 
not home runs hit. It's not touchdowns scored.

It's 257 pounds of marijuana found.

The face on the front of the card belongs to a dog named Buckshot. He now 
resides in Oklahoma.

Buckshot's trading card is attached to a wall in a laboratory at Auburn 
University. Alongside it are the faces of other canine heroes -- Shane, 
Corky, Zoom and many others.

Most are either a German Shepherd, Belgian Malinois or Labrador Retriever. 
Larry Myers, who owns the cards, says several other breeds are also used by 
law enforcement to detect drugs, explosives and signs of arson.

"No bulldogs, though," he laughs. "They can hardly breathe."

You're also not likely, he says with a smile, to see macho DEA agents or 
sheriff's deputies marching into a suspected drug den behind a poodle.

And though he says other animals could detect chemicals -- "A pig could do 
it but they grow to about 300 pounds; a cat, yes, but try to keep one 
disciplined"-- a dog is pretty much the sniffer of choice. "Besides, 
society accepts dogs and they socialize with people," he says.

Some breeds, because of their ability to concentrate, are better than others.

New things

Myers is a professor in the Auburn University College of Veterinary 
Medicine and one of the country's leading experts on canine detection. A 
doctor of veterinary medicine as well as a doctor of physiology, he's 
appeared as a witness both for the prosecution and the defense in hundreds 
of criminal trials across the country and has been interviewed by numerous 
national publications such as "Popular Science" and most recently on 
television's "60 Minutes."

In 1989, Myers founded the Auburn Canine Research Institute, originally 
known as the Institute for Biological Detection Systems and one of the 
nation's leading developers of canine detection technology. The institute 
conducts research at Auburn University, and at a center in Anniston, Ala., 
it trains dogs, handlers, trainers and program managers for government 
agencies.

No longer associated with that the institute, Myers is researching ways 
dogs can be used besides uncovering drugs and explosives.

"We're using dogs to discover mold in houses which would make the building 
dangerous for someone to inhabit," he says. "They're very good at finding 
termites."

He's now doing research for agencies such as the United States Department 
of Agriculture.

Myers is looking for ways to train dogs to detect chemicals in ponds that 
give catfish a bad flavor, a problem costing the industry $50 million per year.

Dogs can also help with cattle breeding. Using vaginal secretions from 
cows, Myers says, he's working to train dogs to tell farmers when the cow 
is ready for mating -- even quicker than a bull can. Once again, the 
research could mean millions to farmers.

Nose know-how

Myers is working to discover how dogs do what they do, and how chemicals in 
a drug or hazardous material stand out to a dog. If Myers and other 
researchers could discover how animals identify odors then that knowledge 
could be used to produce artificial devices that do the same thing. For 
example, perhaps such a device could detect e. coli viruses in food.

Each dog Myers works with goes through 500-1,000 different repetitions 
before it is trained.

Samples such as different tubes of pond water are placed in boxes, which 
are placed in holes in a wooden board. The samples are rotated for each 
repetition, and dogs are not allowed to see them being placed.

"When the dog finds the right sample," explains Auburn veterinary student 
Rebecca Robinson, "they are rewarded with something good to eat. They love 
snacks."

Myers said many of the dogs come from the pound.

"When selecting a dog, it's important to have one that won't be distracted 
by food in the room," Robinson says. "Some can't make the cut."

They can lie

Detection dogs aren't always on top of their game.

"Dental tartar can have an effect," Myers says. "Really. Clean the teeth 
and you get an almost immediate recovery of smell. Dogs get allergies. They 
get colds."

"A dog's sense of smell is not forever," he says. "A variety of diseases 
can destroy the sense of smell."

That's why he says that while he'd "bet my life" on certain dogs, he's not 
sure he'd want to bet someone else's.

"We really don't know what a dog is picking up on when it alerts," Myers 
says. "In many ways we're still dealing with a black box. It could be 
picking up on a lot of things rather than just the scent of a person. It'd 
be hard to convict someone on that kind of evidence."

Also, he says, not all dogs are trained well. "Poor handlers can cause a 
dog's accuracy rate of 85-95 percent to drop to about 60 percent. Dogs want 
rewards and so they will give false alerts to get them. Dogs lie. Programs 
are supposed to train dogs so that doesn't happen. Not all do."

The standard measure of a dog's accuracy, Myers says, is what it finds. 
"The best programs subtract from that score the number of false alerts, but 
many do not. They have no accurate measure of their dog's reliability."

He says some programs are just in it for the money, but there are some good 
programs as well. "Some police departments train their own and do a very 
good job," he says.

And every time there's a terrorist attack or the threat of one, the public 
gets interested in dogs and their sniffing abilities.

"Sometimes working with the dogs can be frustrating," Myers says, "but most 
of the time it's a hoot."

At Auburn, dogs are trained

to detect bombs, drugs, termites -- not to mention sick catfish
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