THE DOGS SMELLERS

Thanks to the extraordinary sensorial capacities of the dog, in matter the one of the sense of smell, the animal can be used in very varied tasks, some of them, really, unexpected. Like this, dogs farejadores exist, meteorologists and, until, geologists. Some are being trained to find works of art stolen other, in great number to detect drugs camouflaged in luggages and loads.

THE DOGS TO SERVICE OF THE ART

To identify a work of art, or a collection object, stolen and disguised, a great number of processes is used (metallic implants, invisible paints, etc.). However, for very numerous and different that you/they are, these means are not of a total effectiveness.

Two French investigators, Claudine Masson, of INRA CNRS, and Marie-Florence Thal, of the DINNER, had the idea of going through the dogs. The beginning of his/her method bases on the use of substances (whose formula stays in secrecy), invisible with the naked eye and imperceptible to the human sense of smell, that she can spray on a picture, for instance.

They become trained the young dogs, of the Civil police and of the Federal, they recognize her/it such substances. They have periodic sessions of training to that you/they get to identify the present odoriferous molecules, even if are mixed with other smells, THE dog changes, like this, in a" biological detector", very superior the all of the" existent physical farejadores."

However, when the molecules are multiplied to get an infinite variety of codes that you/they correspond her/it other so many odors, the physical detectors are, incontestavelmente, more effective.

But the dogs have, on all the other means, the advantage of the displacement. It is possible to take them, easily, to the place where it is a work of art to be identified. In the airports, in the rail stations and in the remaining public places, it is only to walk with them for among the luggages. The trained dogs will be capable, during all his/her life, of smelling the sculptures, the jewels or the stolen pictures, in the condition, of course, of those objects be marked.' As obras marcadas por este processo são incluídas num fichário informatizado.

Claudine Massori's works and of MarieFlorence Thal they provided them a prize. The two researchers created a company of safety.

THE DOG METEOROLOGISTAS

In New York, a local radio station negotiated as meteorologist a youth female dog called Labrador Cindy. When she wanted to leave in the morning, that meant that will make good time. If it was coiled in his/her basket, it was because the time will be bad.

Really, the dog is capable to foresee, mainly rain or wind, then the expression" is a time of dog." As it is said, he announces him/it, eating gram, being turned over in the ground, digging and sniffing everywhere. And possible that it is sensitive to the variations of the atmospheric pressure, through the gases that emanate of the soil in amounts every time minors and that it detects for the smell (to see Scans Animaux-Météo, of Philippe Copé, Balland, 1982).

As many other animals, the dogs are anxious during the time that precedes the earthquakes: for that, it can be useful to observe his/her behavior.

THE DOGS FAREJADORES

At the beginning of the decade of sixty, it was put in practice, in Finland, a program driven by the Institute of Geological Research and subsidized by the government, of training of German Shepherds for us to discover deposits of minerals (especially copper and nickel). Like this, the first dog geologist must have been a called German Shepherd Rajan, by Finnish Pentti Mattason. Past very little time, Rajan had gotten to discover 330 mineral samples in a surface of nine squared kilometers, much more than a man of a detecting apparel.

The effectiveness of the dogs reached a high degree, in marshy land and in earth it hides for moss or covered with snow. Like this, a German Shepherd that smelled minerals to several meters of depth existed, under a spongy soil, being the record in twelve meters.

The training is long. Initially, he/she becomes trained the dog to locate the rocks that contain sulforetos, mixing them with common samples.

Then he/she trains the animal to dig the earth and to bark when he/she finds an interesting mineral, first in the surface and later under earth. For that, the walks some ten meters of the man, that it is going giving him/her the orders. The times the dogs operate in groups of three, in a formation in fan. In this work, not even the mosquitos, that exist in such great amount in Lapônia, stop them.

Charmed for the Finnish experience, the old Soviet Union and Sweden they also form dogs geologists. In the career of the dogs, they could be included many other feats, (away in them it seems a sixth sense to intervene having who he/she doesn't hesitate in classifying that capacity of paranormal).

The prodigious sense of smell of the dog has been one of the characteristics of these encourage more used by the man there are centuries. His/her sense smell é,surpreendentemente, about a thousand times superior to the of the human beings.

Therefore, it tries to take advantage that wonderful biological organ of detection, the nose of the dog efficiently.

The idea of using the dogs for the detection of poisons, remounts to the time of the war of Vietnam during the one which, the heroine consumption among the North American soldiers caused serious problems.

In 1970, the North Americans decided to drug dogs to do with that you/they detected the drug when they suffered of the withdrawal symptom.

This cruel and barbaric procedure was abandoned soon because the dogs intoxicated like this suffered of hepato-renal and heart upset that you/they caused them quickly the death...

Consequently, it is totally erroneous to think that the current dogs rastreadores of drugs are drugged.

If such method was used today, it would be punished severely. Of any way, would not be for anything because, the dogs should be operational during the twenty-four hours of the day, once the rastreamento operations are not programmed in advance.

SEARCH OR THE PASSION FOR THE GAME

The dog rastreador should have several qualities. He/she should be a good dog collector, to give proofs of to have a great physical resistance and to be endowed with potent smell qualities. It should also feel passion for the game, because this is the base of the training. After having learned how to answer to the owner's call, to walk the step, to sit down and to be quiet, the youth dog learns the first specialized lessons playing with the drug... but without that carts some problem for his/her health.

In a nylon sack introduced in a tube of PVC, one of the hardest materials, some marijuana is put. The tube in subject, covered in their extremities and with minuscule holes, it is involved in a poliuretano leaf and later in a cotton fabric, for if it seems the most possible, with the toys for dog. Accustomed to the smell of the drug, the dog should find his/her hidden favorite toy in a way more and more difficult; in the seats, in the lights or in the filter of air of an automobile.

For the dog, the rastreamento is just an excellent occasion to play with the owner.

EACH ONE WITH HIS/HER SPECIALTY

After that first training phase, the dog owes if he accustoms to the rhythm of the airports, to the movement of the freeways, and to enter in contact with or back drugs, this time the heaviest: heroine, cocaine, morphine... Only then the couple owner-dog will be really operational.

He/she rules general, each dog specializes in a single drug variety, the one that allows reach him a maximum efficiency.

Same when the drug is in a box tightly closed, through the material they come off molecules of air bearers of his/her odor, and stiller if the package was in an atmosphere with the very high temperature. The experienced dog can, besides, to detect the drug so in a place insuspeitável as underneath of 30 centimeters of olive oil, in a cistern of water or a sack of spices. In the customs of the airports, for instance, the dog explores to an incredible speed, any equipment, package or vehicle.

The drug dealers, as soon as verified the effectiveness of this new search method, they tried several means to mislead the dog. And the search lost effectiveness for a time due to the pepper, to the garlics, to the onion or the bombs of bad smell.., with that the objects were impregnated that took the drug. But the trainers organized more complex courses to accustom the dog the all those odors until turning him/it almost certain.

In October of 1986, Swiss traffickers transported cats in the car where you/they had hidden the drugs to deceive the sense of smell of the dogs of the customs. The dogs, seduced front to the odor and the vision of the cats, they forgot entirely of what had learned. But he/she was discovered the subterfuge and he/she became trained to the dogs that didn't pay attention to the presence of the small felines.

Thanks to these indispensable auxiliaries, all of the years are discovered kilos of drugs. And a thing is right; for the dog, everything this doesn't pass of a game.

THE RACES

The two races of dogs that the professionals prefer are the German Shepherd, of easy and flexible training, used skins police and for the customs, and Retriever of Labrador endowed with an exceptional sense of smell, a robustness to the whole proof and an exceptional passion in the search. In the reality, it is treated less of peculiar races than of a dog type. The" farejadores", are endowed with an incomparable sense of smell and they know how to use him/it. In certain cases Labrador is preferred because it is a resistant animal and of smaller size than the German Shepherd. It is introduced more easily by the barns and for the sôtãos. Sociable, playful and skilled, Labrador is a dog sweet, balanced and very receptive.

In Brazil, the female dog of larger prominence in the location of drugs is a Springer Spaniel.

Source: OUR Coleção AMIGOS, THE DOGS
Extracted of the site www.dogtimes.com.br
kindly given in by Mariana Saliola.