![]() He said each dog/handler team undergoes 10 to 12 weeks of training before going into the field. ![]() Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration based in Washington, said in an email that the agency believes both its dogs and handlers are reliable. This way a dog could randomly search bags, and since the handler would not be alarmed, the dog might not try so hard to make the right decision.Īt LAX, bomb-sniffing dogs also roam the terminals on a regular basis, randomly checking items. The dogs, he said, could be more useful if allowed to roam the airport. Nicely said that in the case of a suspicious package when officers are already on edge it might make more sense to simply wait for the bomb squad to arrive. The sad part is that the handlers body language can be so subtle that unless you really know what you are looking for, people probably arent going to see it. The handler knows something is up and the dog reacts to the handlers body language, Nicely said. Steven Nicely, who said he trained 750 police dogs and now runs K9 Consultants of America in Texas, said humans sometimes dont even know what is occurring. The overwhelming number of incorrect alerts identified across conditions confirms that handler beliefs affect performance, the researchers, led by Lisa Lit, wrote in a journal called ∺nimal Cognition. ![]() So if the dog thought the handler wanted it to read an item as suspicious, the dog would react accordingly. In 2011, researchers at the University of California, Davis reported that many dogs in pressure-filled situations take cues from their handlers and thus make mistakes. It turns out, some experts say, that the dogs may not be reliable in these situations as some might expect. How might something like this happen? Did the dogs get the scent wrong? Or might the error have been elsewhere?
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