Posts tagged "sense of smell"

Each week, Ben Westhoff shares the ups and downs of owning Pippi, the Dalmatian mix he and his wife, Anna, adopted as a puppy in late 2009.

Last night, in the midst of the most brutal rainstorm of the season so far, Anna took Pippi out to do her business. They were out only for a minute or two, but in between going No. 1 and getting drenched to the bone, Pippi sniffed something on the ground and promptly began devouring it. Anna wrenched the item from her mouth, but then she picked up something else and successfully wolfed it down. Whether these were bits of some old pizza, bagel or shoelace, we'll never know.

If you have a dog, you've surely experienced situations where your pup's nose uncovers contraband that is otherwise invisible to the human eye. (Did we ever tell you about the time Pippi stuck her head in the bushes and came out with a dead squirrel between her teeth?)

On Nov. 9, a police dog bit a man who was trying to defend his home from a would-be burglar. Tim Crossan, of Eugene, Ore. had just broken his hand on the face of the intruder when police, responding to a call, flooded into his home and ordered their K9 unit to attack Mr. Crossan. In the confusion, the burglar escaped and Mr. Crossan was bitten twice. The police have yet to apologize for this incident, although they described it as "unfortunate." At least they went on to say that Crossan, who had protected his wife and children, was "heroic."

Dogs have been used officially to help police officers since the late 1850s in Germany, when they were first employed purely as a deterrent, used only for their teeth and growls. However, the informal use of dogs in law enforcement goes back to the Middle Ages and most likely even before that. These days, dogs help officers primarily with their sense of smell, which is so powerful that they can detect scents one-hundred-millionth fainter than the boundaries of human perception. They can easily find drugs, bombs, criminals, and corpses, even when criminals have taken extra measures to mask odors. So although the police can often make mistakes, police dogs do not. They remain an integral part of public safety.