Dogs Trained to Sniff Out Piracy 147
RockDoctor writes "Northern Ireland has for decades been using sniffer dogs to detect bombs and bomb-making materials. According to the BBC, a dog trainer in the Province has trained two dogs to sniff out some of the chemicals used in the manufacture of optical discs. While this has an obvious risk of false positives (polycarbonate plastics and their associated plasticizer additives are used in many other industries, for example), it does seem to be effective at locating discs which are not declared in customs manifests, and doing so much faster than human inspection of the cargo can do."
This isn't new news (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dog substance addiction (Score:5, Informative)
I have never seen any research or data on this question you bring up. Usually, something this far from "Mainstream Public Awareness" never gets studied unless someone with vested interest in the specific topic is interested in pursuing the subject, and has enough influence to make it happen.
(Disclaimer: my awareness of research is NOT all encompassing!!!)
The answers you are looking for have probably not been addressed, if they have been- not public knowledge. It may have been addressed by the Humane Society, or the SPCA, but if so, has remained fairly quiet.
Hate to say it, but even tho' "man's best friend" is man's best friend, the dog is still considered a domesticated beast to serve us; Thus only to be considered on a "how useful to us" basis.
My experience with K-9's (Police Dogs and US Military MP's) suggest several things:
1. The handlers/partners usually have the dogs as family pets in addition to being their work partner. This may limit overall what the dogs get exposed to compared to all human teams doing the same job.
2. The dogs have REALLY sensitive olofactory organs- if it's too "strong", they will keep their distance and "point" to indicate a detection or hit.
3.Uhmm... they're not immune to "specialized training":(http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?si
4. A lot of this has been covered here:(http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/0
5. Mostly, if it's not considered hazardous for the human handlers, then it's not considered hazardous for the "k-9"'s on the same duty.
I doubt that the issues you are adressing have been fully thought about...I commend you, and feel slightly ashamed that I have not thought about this.
Warning - Moron posting!! (Score:1, Informative)
The dogs are used to sniff out large consignments of CDs or DVDs in cargo transit. If CDs or DVDs are a valid contents for that pallet, fine
If they're not, there's a good chance this is a bulk shipment of pirated s/w or films.
The dogs are used to identify hidden bulk cd cargo shipments, not to catch Jimmy with his walkman!
DoHHHHH!