• walden
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    636 hours ago

    That’s good. The article talks about how K9’s should be handled with the legalization of weed. Should they be retired if they still respond to weed, etc.

    Of course K9’s aren’t trained to actually smell anything. They’re just trained to respond to an officers command, giving police the freedom to search any vehicle they please.

    • @Feathercrown
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      -175 hours ago

      Of course K9’s aren’t trained to actually smell anything

      Can we stop with the conspiracy theories please? This is just stupid.

      • @[email protected]
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        283 hours ago

        There was a study done where police K9 units where told they’d be testing the accuracy of the dog’s ability to find drugs. In actually, they were testing the handlers. Handlers were told drugs were hidden in a certain location, but there wasn’t actually drugs there. Despite that, all their dogs alerted several times to the location the handlers were told about.

        • @Feathercrown
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          17 minutes ago

          I’ve looked at several of these studies today and they all prove without a doubt that handlers have an effect on their dogs’ behavior, but they don’t prove that the dogs don’t have the ability to detect what they say they can. That might become useless policy-wise if the police can nearly always cause the dog to alert, but science-wise it’s dishonest to say that the dogs can’t smell anything.

      • queermunist she/her
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        404 hours ago

        It’s a fact that they have an extremely high false-positive rate. Whether that’s intentional or not doesn’t change the fact that it serves law enforcement’s interests.

        • @Feathercrown
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          4 hours ago

          I suppose that’s true, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t smell anything. Your conclusion may be correct, but your initial claim isn’t, and that’s something I’m seeing on lemmy more than I’d like to.

          • @[email protected]
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            124 hours ago

            He didn’t say they don’t smell anything. He said they’re trained to respond to their handler. What he said is true. Even if it’s not what they’re intentionally training, it is a verifiable fact that most k9s respond more to their handlers body language than to any actual substance they’re smelling.

            • @Feathercrown
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              4 hours ago

              Of course K9’s aren’t trained to actually smell anything

              He didn’t say they don’t smell anything

              Anyways, I wasn’t able to find data on police K9 units. I found this which has some good data with references further down the page, but it’s pretty far from a field environment. Do you have a study (“verifiable fact”) that has this data?

                • @Feathercrown
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                  16 minutes ago

                  See my response to that comment

              • @[email protected]
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                63 hours ago

                they are not trained to smell

                but that doesn’t mean they don’t smell anything

                These are two different statements saying different things. Yes, police dogs often have noses that function. No, police dogs often do not require their noses in order to get the response the handler is wanting.

                And I was specifically referring to US k9s, but here are polish dogs. Their efficacy in cars, which is what I was referring to although did not explicitly state, is only 57%. Im still looking at other sources to find a more reliable, hopefully first hand, study.

                • @[email protected]
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                  2 hours ago

                  The question wasn’t about the efficacy of dogs but about the “only respond to handler” part and you didn’t provide a source for that.

                  Edit: another comment provided a study for that.

            • @Feathercrown
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              13 hours ago

              Ah yeah, sorry bout that. Replace “your” with “their” then

          • @EvacuateSoul
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            -14 hours ago

            They’re actually remote-controlled, not real dogs.

      • walden
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        83 hours ago

        No, you’re right. I do believe they’re trained to detect things, and thought about editing it, but I stuck with the poor wording.

        • @Frozengyro
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          11 hour ago

          They are trained for it. That doesn’t mean they can do it well.

        • @Feathercrown
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          33 hours ago

          I appreciate this, apologies for sounding a bit hostile