Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
mand: “Go find your fish.” My voice probably had an edge, although it shouldn't have. Solo
moved on to find a couple of hides that were really there.
“That's why we call it training,” Mike Baker said after I had put Solo in the car, chagrined.
He was slightly irked at me for allowing Solo to con me and at the other handler for not pre-
venting the con.
The adaptive advantages of our two species co-evolving are obvious. Yet those same con-
nections become a real disadvantage when you want a dog's nose to be an independent and
disinterested witness.
False alerts have to be dealt with honestly, or they become the elephant in the training
room or on search scenes. Like alcoholism, they are more common than acknowledged. A
few handlers swear that their dogs never, ever false-alert and that something must have been
there, even if it was just residual scent. That comforting circular story—
there must have been
something there, because I trust my dog, who is perfect and would never, ever misrepresent
—can
come back to bite you in the butt. Philosopher Harry Frankfurt calls it “bullshit.” Bullshit,
Frankfurt notes in his famous essay, is more insidious than a lie. While someone may not
realize she's bullshitting, and while the bullshit isn't always false, it creates a broader problem:
a general indifference to facts. We see this in politics all the time—and in the dog world,
which is different but similar. That's why Frankfurt argues that bullshitting is more corrosive
than lying. The liar, unlike the bullshitter, is aware that he's positioning himself against what
he thinks is the truth. Lying takes a bit of effort, a slight respect for the truth that is out there,
somewhere.
I will never know for certain, when Solo false alerts, whether he distinguishes between ly-
ing and bullshitting. I believe Solo tries to be honest. Mike Baker once called him one of the
most honest dogs he knows, partly because it is so easy to read his body language before an
alert.
Nonetheless, Solo will false alert. Infrequently, but it goes into my training and search re-
cords. Every alert gets counted. It mostly happens when he's in scent, but not as close as he
could and should get, but he decides that's good enough for him. Or if I'm handling him
badly, as I did in the warehouse. Sometimes I'll never know why. Sometimes I can speculate
why he alerted. Not all of them are false. If we're searching a junkyard of wrecked cars, and
Solo alerts on a front seat where an airbag has deployed or the windshield is shattered? I'll re-
ward him for that one, even if there's no body in the trunk. Blood can stick around for years.
If there are five or six cops standing and staring at something redolent lying on the ground,
say, a bag with a dead dog in it? Solo will look at it, too, look around, gauge everyone's ex-
pression, and think, Hey, maybe that's something worth alerting on. They're into it, right? In
that case, no reward. Move on. During searches, if people want me to check garbage bags that
look suspicious, or particular bones, I politely ask if they can keep a short distance away. On a
