Comments by "Tx240" (@Texas240) on "Institute for Justice"
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@JJM2222 some dogs might just want a reward. My dog just wants to be outside "working". She's not trained for anything specific, but she has an INTENSE nose and she can differentiate between a mouse and a chicken bone and find either in an open field we've never been to before.
If you actually spend time with a dog with an intense nose and watch them while they're using it, you will quickly see that they can very well differentiate scents and see how they behave when they detect something. The reward is in being able to go and do the sniffing.
That's with a properly selected dog. Add in proper training to alert to certain scents and you'll have a dog that's detecting what you want and doing it because they want to be sniffing. Working dogs (mine is a mix of Border Collie and Husky) want to be doing a job. That job is the reward. While a dog in training might get rewards like treats or ball, a dog at work with a good handler isn't getting any of that. As you point out, it could cue the dog. In the video, the dog didn't alert falsely, although it would probably credited with such skewing accuracy. The dog was cued to and then used as "probable cause".
With a sniffing dog, you're taking a dog who wants to work and training him to do the job that let's him use his nose. As the original comment mentioned, an error is going to be from the handler cueing a result (and, they aren't machines, they have bad days just like us). The dog knows what gets the handler excited. They're good at observing us, but they also understand how to do whatever they're trained for.
If you had something "interesting" on you, my dog would pull me towards you without any training. Walking her through a parking lot is sometimes funny and a bit scary, since nobody likes a narc. She's usually just detecting whatever road kill or detritus the car tires kicked up into the wheel well. But...I wonder what's in the cars when she goes for the trunk or doors.
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