Case Study: An Evaluation of Detection Dog Generalization to a Large Quantity of an Unknown Explosive in the Field.

ABSTRACT: Two explosive detection dogs were deployed to search a suspicious bag, and failed to detect 13 kg of explosive within. The aim of this research was to further evaluate this incident. First, dog teams (N = 7) searched four bags in a similar scenario. One bag contained the same 13 kg of explosive, two bags were blanks, and the other contained the training sample that the agency routinely used for training. All dogs detected the training sample, but most (5/7) did not alert to the 13 kg sample. Subsequently, dogs received two trials in a line up with a 30 g subsample of the explosive to evaluate whether they could generalize to a smaller quantity. Most dogs (6/7) alerted to the subsample at least once. Finally, dogs were trained with the 30 g subsample and later tested with the 13 kg sample.

SUBMITTER: Aviles-Rosa EO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8151250 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature