THE
STOP
even with conscientious cops, a dog without the proper training may pick up on its
handler’s body language and alert whenever it detects its handler is suspicious.
In one study published last year in the
journal Animal Cognition , researchers
rigged some tests designed to fool dogs
into falsely alerting and others designed
to trick handlers into thinking a package contained narcotics (it didn’t). Of
HUFFINGTON
10.21.12
Evidence suggests that detection dogs may be easily
manipulated by their handlers to prompt a reaction.
the 144 total searches performed, the
dogs falsely alerted 123 times. More interesting, the dogs were twice as likely
to falsely alert to packages designed to
trick their handlers than those designed
to trick the dogs.
In 2011, the Chicago Tribune published a review of drug dog searches
conducted over three years by police
departments in the Chicago suburbs.