Sniffer dogs hinder police investigations

CorvusCorax

CorvusCorax

Deary me...
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http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK...proved_Standards_Are_Complicating_Some_Probes

As you can imagine, I strongly disagree, I have seen Eddie (and Keela) working and he has assisted in a number of investigations here...common sense dictates a second dog and handler team check the area, but when there are a stupidly small amount of trained cadaver dogs here compared to in the USA (see mention of body farm in comments section!!!) how can the expertise be shared :(

I think what dogs ADD to police investigations cannot be argued. Sure there are a few cock ups, but compared to human error...really?!
 
I found that article really frustrating to read... The jist of the report it refers to seems to be that cadaver dogs will sometimes lead police to follow false leads because they can sometimes detect the remains of other dead people on second hand furniture etc (not at all relevant, but that really gives me the willies! :eek:).

But the police will always inevitably end up following false leads during investigations, whether because of false testimony, innacurate witnesses, false scents, whatever. False leads are surely a difficult but usual part of police work. In the case of the cadaver dogs, it seems to me that such false leads a fair price to pay for the times in which they do come up trumps and find evidence of a murder, or the remains of someones loved one.

The article/report seems to suggest that better training is needed, but is it really possible to train dogs to tell the difference between the microscopic remains of one dead person from that of another? :confused:
 
False leads are surely frustrating but what are you supposed to do? Show the dog a photo and say "this is your guy, leave the others"???

Surely any find is a 'good' (used loosely) find as it's obviously another uncovered crime that needs to be investigated?

I think sniffer dogs do a damned good job and need more credit, not negativity!
K x
 
I saw on the news tonight that they are planning to use cadaver sniffer dogs to try and locate the second body down in Wiltshire, hope they are successful and someone's loved one can be laid to rest at last.
 
Not a very encouraging investigation if they are relying totally on a dog which in the UK cannot be used as evidence anyway and to be fair the dog doesn't know which body they were after being on the sofa, so it's up to the investigation to decide which direction it follows with the other information available not the dog!!!! Me votes for poor journalism again and they failed to mention Eddie's new job but that would mean they couldn't slate the dogs wouldn't it!!

To be fair some of the training in the UK can be a bit iffy, there is no one overseeing the training methods or results and there is no real testing system, but they were warned about that before this review even took place. In the USA they can train using the real thing, but here they have to use a substitute, but that is no real excuse, the trainers just need to know what they are doing across the board.

Eddie at work!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EHJjpXii9o&feature=related
 
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I don't understand this statement: "The dogs found evidence of dead bodies, but officers later discovered the corpses were nothing to do with her disappearance."

Surely that is the dogs job though isn't it? Just because the dead bodies had nothing to do with the investigation isn't the dogs fault?

I think this is a stupid article.
 
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