HUMAN SCENT MATCHING USING SPECIALLY TRAINED DOGS

The purpose of this project was to provide data on the success rate of dogs identifying people by scent when working in conditions similar t o those used by the police in Holland and Germany. Over 700 scent samp les were collected from people of both sexes and a wide age range and seven dogs, Canis familiaris, were trained to match human body scents. The test conditions were carefully controlled to eliminate any cue ot her than the body scents presented to the dog. Each dog sniffed a piec e of cloth which had been in contact with an unspecified part of the b ody of a person and then indicated which of a selection of blank or bo dy-scented cloths bore the same scent. The handler did not know the lo cation of the target scent. The average score of the dogs working with body-scented cloths from six donors was 80% correct whereas a random choice of cloth would have been 17% correct. A further experiment was carried out in which three dogs were asked to match odour from various parts of the body with hand odour of the same donor collected on clea n steel tubes. The average score for this task was 85% correct with a selection of six donor odours. The results show that dogs have conside rable scent matching ability but that individual aptitude and the day- to-day performance can vary. Dogs used in criminal investigations shou ld be selected for aptitude and the tests replicated so that conclusio ns are not based on trials from a single dog.