Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
False claims, repeated often enough—as tracking trainer Tracy Bowling pointed
out—reach the level of legitimacy. From there, one can trace the real and obvious harm those
lies create. They undermine truthful handlers who don't overreach. They keep people from
training their dogs to the necessary level. They can make the work of a good dependable dog
look obvious and simple when, in reality, it's enormously difficult.
The exaggerations send the media into a tailspin about the wonder of dogs, then a counter-
tailspin when the inevitable cautionary tales emerge. The bed-bug backlash is a nice ex-
ample. The
New York Times
's honeymoon with bed-bug-detector dogs ended in less than a
year. Its first March 2010 article had nary a doubt about the effectiveness of canine versus
bug: “Bedbug-sniffing dogs, adorable yet stunningly accurate—entomology researchers at the
University of Florida report that well-trained dogs can detect a single live bug or egg with
96 percent accuracy—are the new and furry front line in an escalating and confounding do-
mestic war.” Dogs in those accounts seemed to work alone, without handlers. They just took
a taxi to inspect Upper East Side hotels by themselves.
Eight months later, the
Times
's tone had changed: “Doubts Rise on Bedbug-Sniffing
Dogs”: “But as the number of reported infestations rises and the demand for the dogs soars,
complaints from people who say dogs have inaccurately detected bedbugs are also climbing.”
Cautionary scientific studies are starting to appear, to the great consternation and some-
times rancorous objections of some dog handlers and organizations, who can pick holes in
a study faster than an army of termites and claim that they are “shocked, shocked” to find
there is anything amiss in the magical kingdom of working dogs. The feigned shock is an-
other nice example of what Frankfurt calls bullshit. But it's inevitable and, at one level, un-
derstandable. The canine legal arena has become incredibly complex and contentious—the
Supreme Court took on its first two Florida dog-sniff cases in 2013. The cases were based
on the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches. While the court sided
with the dog and handler during a traffic stop in one case, the other case, which involved sus-
pected marijuana growing in a private home, had a different outcome. The police used a drug
dog's sniff at the door of the house to establish probable cause to get a search warrant. The
majority ruled that K9 noses aren't that different from prying government eyes. Your right to
privacy extends to keeping a K9 nose away from your home. That decision will have reper-
cussions on how sniffer dogs' noses can be used.
So when a scientific study casts any doubt on the invincibility of working dogs, handlers
and trainers react with alacrity. That was certainly the case for a 2011 study in
Animal Cog-
nition
by researcher and former detection-dog handler Lisa Lit and two colleagues at the
University of California, Davis. The study showed that law enforcement K9 handlers, when
they expect to find gunpowder or marijuana in a certain place, either will state or will actually
believe that their dogs have found the substance—even if there's nothing there.
