Behavioral and Cognitive Factors That Affect the Success of Scent Detection Dogs

Abstract

Scent detection dogs are used in a variety of contexts; however, very few dogs successfully complete their training, and many others are withdrawn from service prematurely due to both detection accuracy issues in the field and wider behavioral issues. This article aims to review our understanding of the factors affecting variation in scent detection dogs' learning of the tasks and performance in the field. For this we deconstructed the scent detection task into its key behavioral elements and examined the literature relating to the factors affecting variation in the dogs' success all across their development. We first consider factors that affect individuality and individual performance, in general, such as temperament, arousal, the handler-dog relationship, training regimes, and the housing and management of scent detections dogs. We then focus on tasks specific to scent detection dogs and critically appraise relevant literature relating to the learning and performance of these tasks by dogs. This includes prenatal and early life exposure and later environment, training regime, and the human-dog relationship, as well as performance limiting factors such as the need to pant in hot environments during work.

A Need for Greater Inclusivity and Diversity in Scent Detection Dog Research: A Reply to Lazarowski et al. and Byosiere et al.

“…and Lazarowski, Waggoner, and Katz (2019) expand the scope of our review (Troisi, Mills, Wilkinson, & Zulch, 2019) in two important but different directions.…”

Selecting Dogs for Explosives Detection: Behavioral Characteristics

“…Maejima et al (33) found that higher levels of anxiety were associated with a stronger desire for work and successful certification as a drug detection dog. Given that physiological arousal is closely associated with stress (e.g., increased cortisol) (43), it may be that selecting for high levels of energy and arousal carries with it an increased general reactivity.…”

“…This effect varies by individual baseline arousal level; for example, the inhibitory control abilities of service dogs with low baseline levels of arousal benefited from a boost in arousal, whereas, the performance of pet dogs with higher baseline arousal suffered when arousal was increased (by exciting the dog) (45). Further, increased arousal can impair learning, memory, and decision making (43). Increased arousal is characterized by activation of physiological responses, such as increased breathing and heart rate.…”

“…Increased arousal is characterized by activation of physiological responses, such as increased breathing and heart rate. Thus, increasing arousal may result in heavy panting, which reduces olfactory ability as dogs are not able to sniff and pant at the same time (43,46). While high energy levels are important for sustaining motivation during long searches, excessive arousal may interfere with endurance.…”

Diving in Nose First: The Influence of Unfamiliar Search Scale and Environmental Context on the Search Performance of Volunteer Conservation Detection Dog–Handler Teams

“…When training and working, detection dogs are often required to use skills learnt in one context and apply them in another context, which is termed generalizing [ 15 ]. This term can refer to either context generalization; where dogs are required to apply search skills in different contexts (e.g., different environments, search sizes or other variables) [ 16 , 17 , 18 ], or olfactory generalization; where dogs are required to categorize stimuli (i.e., odors) that are perceptually similar as likely to share an associated outcome (i.e., reward) [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ].…”