POLICE DOGS

Shannon News, 20 April 1926, Page 2

POLICE DOGS

VASTiLY OVERRATED. OF LITTLH; PRACTICAL VALUE. There is a-common belief which has probably been fed by fox-hunting and by detective stories, that a hound or a police dog can track down any thief once it has sniffed any object he may have dropped, be ii a handkerchief, a matchbox, or a cigar end writes the Berlin correspondent of th e Manchester Guardian). The Berlin police have conducted a long series of experiments, and have come to the conclusion that the police dog has ben vastly overrated. The results of these experiments are summarised in the Vossishe Zeiitung. They are fully record" (I by Major Most, the director of the Police Dog School at Gruenheide, in his book "Beitrage >;ur Yerwendung van Hunden in Kriminaldienst." Major Most's ■ experiments show thait even in artificially favourable conditions,*"' when the scent in fresh an'd is not crossed by other trails, the dog usually fails to follow it up. This, of course, is not so "when the scent, is very rank or otherwise distinctive as it is in a fox-hunt. Major Most's experiments were made so as to test the dog's ability to track, not ranksmelling animals, but human beings. When the scent was a few hours old or when it was crossed by others (as it would nearly always be in natural conditions) the animals were almost invariably unsuccessful in following up. Major Most's conclusions were challenged by Police- Inspector Graudenz. ■ The challenge was accepted, and Inspector Graudenz's trained dogs were put to a number of elaborate tests, which fully confirmed Major Most's previous experiments. A further series ot tests was carried out with .16 trained dogs by order of the Prussian Ministry of the Inter, ior. The animals beiiig made !ro follow both simple and complex trials, to find hidden objects after having sniffed the owners, to lind (the owners after having the ;objects, and so on. Out of a 'total of 41 tests the dogs were indubitably; successful in only two. Further experiments had similar results. ; All the evidence went to show that police dogs may be useful £is watch-dogs,-but for tracking-Mown fugitive criminals they are so unreliable that; it is'dangerous 'to use \them at all, seeing that mistakes ar|e easily made, German country folk, (especially, on ' the big estates, have ;ui (almost supcr--1 stituous faith in the infallibility of police dogs. The results is that when some crime has been commiittcd the animals often track down the wrong people, who may find it impossible to establish their innocence) in the eyes of infuriated villages, who believe thai hounds cannot go w,rong. Then' is, in Germany,: a demand for laws that will put s£n end to the harm done, by so dangerous a supers'iituous and to restrict t;he indiscriminate use of police dogsl by private person-:. Police dogs are> useful in helping to protect life ahid property. especially on remote farnls and estates, but it is Major Most's ppinion that for tracking down human jbcings tncy are worse )than. useless, e\<m in the hands of the police thems&lves.