Detection dog

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A detection dog getting ready to search a car for explosives.

Detection dog at the Canadian/American border

A detection dog is a dog that is trained to and works at using its senses (almost always the sense of smell) to detect substances such as explosives, illegal drugs or blood. They are often known as sniffer dogs. Hunting dogs that search for game and search dogs that search for missing humans are generally not considered detection dogs. There is some overlap in cases like cadaver dogs that detect human remains. In the state of California they use dogs for detecting the Quagga Mussel on boats at public boat ramps, as it is a invasive species.

[edit] Functions

Detection dogs have been trained to search for many substances including the following:

Agricultural produce
Cancer^[1]
Polycarbonate optical disks, such as DVDs
Crime evidence
Currency
Drugs
Explosives
Firearms
Human remains
Mold
Quagga Mussel
Termites

One notable quality of detection dogs is that they are able to discern individual scents even when the scents are combined or masked by other odors. In one case at an Australian prison, a detection dog foiled an attempt to smuggle drugs that had been hidden in a woman's bra and smeared with coffee, pepper and Vicks Vapo-rub. A sniffer dog's sense of smell is 2000 times more sensitive than that of humans. They can even detect things (blood, etc.) that have been left for as long as 10 years. They can detect blood even if it has been scrubbed off surfaces. In one case recently a sniffer dog sniffed a drop of blood on the wall that had been attempted to be scrubbed off. It was so small that it couldn't be seen without a microscope. ^[2]

Some of these functions can be carried out by trained pigs, which also have an excellent sense of smell, and have been used to hunt truffles, underground fungi, for centuries.