Abstract
Dogs are increasingly used in a wide range of detection tasks including explosives, narcotics, medical, and wildlife detection. Research on detection dog performance is important to understand olfactory capabilities, behavioral characteristics, improve training, expand deployment practices, and advance applied canine technologies. As such, it is important to understand the influence of specific variables on the quantification of detection dog performance such as test design, experimental controls, odor characteristics, and statistical analysis. Methods for testing canine scent detection vary influencing the outcome metrics of performance and the validity of results. Operators, management teams, policy makers, and law enforcement rely on scientific data to make decisions, design policies, and advance canine technologies. A lack of scientific information and standardized protocols in the detector dog industry adds difficulty and inaccuracies when making informed decisions about capability, vulnerability, and risk analysis. Therefore, the aim of this review is to highlight important methodological issues and expand on considerations for conducting scientifically valid detection dog research.
Highlights
Dogs’ superior olfactory abilities and high trainability are leveraged for a wide range of chemical and biological detection applications
Systematic reviews of canine olfactory detection literature have identified a major lack in reporting the information necessary to evaluate the validity of the results [1], as well as a prevalence of methodological confounds that could bias their interpretation [2]
Brachycephalic breeds showed the least sensitivity in detecting the odor compared to non-brachycephalic breeds. These findings suggest that differences in structure and function of the olfactory system may influence performance in an odor detection task, which could have implications for extrapolating results to other populations of dogs
Summary
Dogs’ superior olfactory abilities and high trainability are leveraged for a wide range of chemical and biological detection applications. As the scope of detection dog applications continues to grow, understanding detection dog olfactory capabilities and factors affecting performance is critical for improving training and deployment practices. Methods for testing canine olfactory detection vary widely and such variation can influence the interpretation of results. Systematic reviews of canine olfactory detection literature have identified a major lack in reporting the information necessary to evaluate the validity of the results [1], as well as a prevalence of methodological confounds that could bias their interpretation [2]. We review the various critical features that should be included in the design and implementation of olfactory detection studies in order to ensure the quality and reproducibility of results. The extent to which results show evidence in support of what they claim, as well as external validity, referring to the ability
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