A Solution for the Shortage of Detection Dogs: A Detector Dog Center of Excellence and a Cooperative Breeding Program

Abstract

Currently, demand for US-bred and born detector dogs exceeds available supply, while reliance on foreign-bred sources introduces many unnecessary and unwanted risks. With proper management of a domestic supply line, U.S. breeders can improve both health and behavior by applying scientific principles to breeding and raising of detector dogs. A cooperative national detector dog breeding and development program will mitigate the current shortage of domestic-bred dogs that meet the health and behavior standards required by government, military, and law enforcement agencies. To coordinate such a cooperative, we propose a Detector Dog Center of Excellence (DDCoE) led by representatives of academic canine science programs guided by an advisory board of stakeholders. As a non-governmental organization, the DDCoE will oversee selective breeding of dogs owned by breeders, purchase the resulting puppies, and its members will supervise puppy raising until dogs are of a suitable age to be purchased by government agencies or other working dog organizations. The DDCoE will serve as an approved vendor to facilitate the procurement process. Breeding decisions will be based on proven quantitative genetic methods implemented by a specialized database. A national working dog semen bank will ensure conservation of diverse genetic material and enhance selection response by providing numerous potential sires. As a data collection and genetic evaluation center, the DDCoE will lead research to define quantitative traits involved in odor detection, to understand how these traits develop, and methods to optimize training of dogs endowed with enhanced odor detection ability.

Enhancing the Selection and Performance of Working Dogs

“…Furthermore, breeding programs can be costly. One approach to improve success in breeding programs is to adopt a cooperative approach in which dogs who are suited for other careers are exchanged with complementary organizations ( 50 ).…”

Editorial: Working Dogs: Form and Function

“…Breeding programs offer some advantages through the ability to select for heritable health and behavioral traits and control the early developmental period of potential working dogs. There is a movement to develop a National Breeding Cooperative in the United States to provide a larger pool of available working dogs to meet the growing demands (11). Selection criteria are important for both breeding programs and for dogs selected from shelters.…”

“…Many of the smaller organizations are not accredited and appear to have a high turnover (Walther et al). There is a global shortage of detection dogs that is attributed to increased international demand (11). The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST; https://www.nist.gov/topics/forensic-science/dogs-sensors-subcommittee) has been working to convert Scientific Working Group on Dogs and Orthogonal detector Guidelines (SWGDOG; http://swgdog.fiu.edu/) into standards for detection dogs to ensure that the dogs that are serving in these important roles meet defined performance and care standards.…”

The role of bio-detection dogs in the prevention and diagnosis of infectious diseases: A systematic review

“…Today, cancer detection dogs are routinely trained and used to diagnose cancer in many countries. Nowadays, many centers of foundations have been established to train and use cancer detection dogs (32).…”