Where do I even start?
All dogs have better abilities to use their noses to scent things out than do people. The longer the dog’s nose (e.g., German Shepherd) the greater the surface area inside the nose turbinates available to capture chemicals associated with scent and refer the information to the highly developed olfactory center in the dog’s brain. This is where the breed differences come into play (one reason why “smashed nose” breeds are not typically used for this kind of work). Bloodhounds have the additional advantage of long floppy ears and flues (floppy upper lips) to help corral a scent right in front of their noses.
When we train search dogs, we are not training them to use their noses—they already know how to do that. Dogs trained for the purposes of searching to help people find thngs are actually being trained to locate certain scents and to tell their handlers that they found it.
Dogs who work in these fields are usually taught to find specific scents (i.e., you would use one dog trained to find bombs, a different dog to find people, etc.) This is not because the dog couldn’t find the different search item, but because the 1) the handler needs to respond differently (bomb vs. drugs) and 2) the dog has limited abilities to communicate what has been found (sitting, downing, barking). So the dogs are trained to specialize in a specific discipline. It is for these reasons that the FEMA search dogs are trained to find living people only (so expensive resources are deployed quickly to save a life). When the live find only dogs are finished, THEN the human remains dogs and cross/trained dogs are called in.
There are also several disciplines for HOW the dog goes about their work. Some dogs are trained to work with their heads down (think bloodhound) and follow a trail or track. Others are trained to work with their heads in a normal position (up) and do what is called air-scenting.
Tracking/trailing dogs are used to find things that move (i.e., people). Drugs typically don’t move without the assistance of people so the drugs don’t leave a track or trail. Bloodhounds are bred to be experts at tracking/trailing and not specifically air-scenting. (That is how handlers make the best use of the floppy ears and flues).
Air-scenting dogs catch the smells of the chemicals floating on air currents (human cells, drug chemicals, etc.). My dog is trained to find people and human remains using air-scenting. If I hang a piece of human bone in a tree, he can find it. His ability to do so, however, can be impacted by the wind conditions at the ground level and those up in the tree.
If one were to hide drugs in a typical home, there are different air current conditions than being out of doors. I can’t think of anywhere indoors that one could hide drugs (heightwise) where a dog couldn’t find it. Even if he couldn’t get his nose on the exact spot, he would demonstrate behaviors that would indicate that the item was out of his reach.
My dog will go up on his back legs and work with his head waaay up to let me know that the item is out of his reach over his head. He is trained to get himself to the point where the scent pool is the strongest (if he can’t get to the item itself) and to indicate (give his trained response). The handler then works to help the dog narrow things down.
Some people try to fool the dogs by placing drugs in containers with other substances they think will mask the drug’s smell (e.g., coffee). Drug dog handlers know this and can get their dogs to find drugs in the presence of other potentially confusing smells by incorporating this into the training process.
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