bellyup
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2010
- Messages
- 2,506
- Reaction score
- 14,484
The tweet from this mornings search showed this sweet face and I was wondering if we could tell which kind of dog it is, but it sounds like it's not possible to tell just by the breed: https://twitter.com/NorthPortPolice/status/1440670269681532929?s=20
It is and it's not. While some dogs excel at a certain thing (ie; a little breeds) they're rarely used in real life police scenarios where natural ability, drive, stamina, size, precision,etc have to come into play. A GSD has 250+ million olfactory receptors a Labrador or bloodhound has around 300 million whereas a smaller dog will have 100-125 million and a human about 6 million.
Which is why you see hounds, shepherds and occasionally Labradors as the primary dogs used in police work. When you see bloodhounds, coonhounds or beagles with their nose to the ground you can almost count on the fact that they are trailing. They might be trained to do other things but trailing is where they excel.
GSD's , malinois, and labs tend to excel at tracking and air scenting and/or cadaver work. They have more stamina and drive then their hound cousins. You'll also see collie SAR dogs but more often in disaster or urban work- they're prized for having a high hunt drive, being agile and working independently.
When you're looking at a police situation they're using the best of the best dogs in each category so if you know their breed strengths you can ponder a pretty good guess at what that dog is doing.
MOO - The dog in the twitter link is very likely highly skilled- going by it's age. He or she is getting closish to retirement. I'd bet she's capable of tracking/ air scenting and cadaver and she probably excels above and beyond at one of those.