Capabilities of the Dogs

Will stick this article here as well from a couple of weeks back:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4515430/Researchers-reveal-track-corpse.html

The science of finding dead bodies: Researchers reveal the techniques to track down a corpse
In many homicide cases, bodies end up getting buried in the ground
Scientific methods like looking for surface soil variations can help locate victims
Depressions or small hills could indicate that a body was buried underneath
Search teams can also use specialist 'cadaver dogs' to sniff for remains
They can also use geophysical methods to scan identified areas such as ground penetrating radar, which uses radar pulses to image the subsurface

I couldn't agree more with this.  Some lovely anecdotes in the article.  Hope it will be seriously considered.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-40346539

Don't be scared to let animals on wards, say nurses

Southampton Children's Hospital is studying animal therapy on wards

Hospitals should let more dogs and other animals on to wards and even into operating theatres to help patients, the Royal College of Nursing says.

The call comes after the RCN collected scores of anecdotes of therapy-animals, and sometimes pets, helping recovery.
Some young patients found having trained dogs accompany them to the anaesthetic room reduced their anxiety before and after surgery.

The RCN is working on national advice to encourage more animal visitors.

Those "unreliable" dogs are being used again:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4624686/Police-scour-Westminster-ahead-Queen-s-Speech.html

Will put this here as well:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4624686/Police-scour-Westminster-ahead-Queen-s-Speech.html

They're good enough for lesser royalty like the Windsors but not the McCanns!

Ultimately, any living thing can have an off day, and I don't suppose the dogs are any different.

However - thinking of my cats:

They are cats, and only do what they want to. Their sense of smell is not as good as a dogs. They lack the desire to please humans. However - when my cat says there is a mouse under the kitchen cabinet there is a mouse. The one time I was convinced that it was unreliable, and only a cat, it cost me a new dishwasher as the mouse ate all the wiring, and the pipes.

They are only cats, and in 30 years of owning cats I have never had a false positive, if they say there is a mouse there, there is a mouse there.

They will give false negatives, the "I can't be bothered", or "you have been cooking onions". Dogs are less likely to do that, but I guess it could still happen. We also don't understand scent, so maybe we sometimes ask the dogs to work in the equivalent of bright sunlight, when seeing small details can be difficult?

Anyway, if I tell you that a cat is unreliable, I am talking about the times they miss things, and I would guess the same is true for dogs. I would say that they are not unreliable when they say there is something there.

Andrew wrote:I didn't spot this before but someone else I just noticed has pulled him up on it:

Mark Williams-Thomas‏Verified account @mwilliamsthomas  21h21 hours ago
Ex detective Gonçalo Amoral makes another totally ridiculous claim.That Madeleine McCann was cremated in a coffin. http://dailym.ai/2qmVCNZ

... That's how all the pathetic internet shills spell his name.

In fact it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if this clown is one of them.

Mark Williams-Thomas strikes me as highly suspect.

Does anyone have any more info on Dr Amaral's opinion that Madeleine was cremated?

Also when anyone states that something is a 'totally ridiculous' in this case, I tend to think that whatever has been said presses some buttons.

'Find the body and prove we killed her': Gerry McCann.

Guest wrote:

froggy wrote:He may not be on that committee any more. A current list of members can be found here
https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/committee-on-medical-aspects-of-radiation-in-the-environment-comare#membership

scroll down for membership

Thanks for that.  That's another question, was he pushed or did he jump. I've found this extract from a post from Joana Morais -

http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2013/10/mccanns-links-to-government-as-origin.html

News Anchor Andreia Vale - The connections of the McCann family to the British government have always been viewed as one of the reasons for the heightened media coverage given to the case. Maddie's father worked for the government and would have aspirations of integrating the executive.

Voice over - From the news of the alleged abduction until the English police landed in Portugal was a matter of few hours. The proximity of the girl's father with the English government made it easier to give priority to the case and mobilize the necessary means. Gerry McCann worked in a committee for the Government which analysed the impact of Nuclear plants in the environment, at a time when Tony Blair was the prime minister. As a doctor, a cardiologist by profession, the "McCann father" wished to go further and everything suggested that he aspired to have a political office in the government, namely as health minister. The way in which he asked for help when Maddie disappeared also indicates the proximity with the British government. Gerry McCann would have called one of Tony Blair's aides, at the time an university professor. It is this man who takes the first steps in order to help the McCann family. Another name that appears is Clarence Mitchell, he came to Portugal to advise the McCann couple and to liaise with the media. In his CV was his role as the director of a department that monitored the press and all the news for the British government. He was also the head of the Comms Cabinet Office of Gordon Brown. Connections that succeed in sending to the Algarve dogs, experts, police, and various resources from the United Kingdom.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I find the sentence referring to GM as aspiring to have a political office, namely as health minister, most intriguing.  I've never seen that mentioned before.  I wonder where that information came from.

I know this is an old post but I think it answers quite a few questions about about how the McCanns were able to garner high level support. Ye Gods! Can you imagine Gerry McCann as health minister?

My mind is beyond boggling. What a terrible thought. Just goes to show how truly corrupt Blair's regime was.

Having watched GM in media interviews and I would say he has quite a serious personality disorder. The photo of him fawning over his 'wider agenda' flip-chart is scary, imo. He is gazing at his work of art as if he has seriously fallen in love. In love with 'the wider agenda' perhaps? Contrast this with the demeanour of the boorish man slumped moodily on the airport bus, disengaged with his family and swearing in front of everyone including young children. Poor old KM, she really did pull the short straw in terms of husband and father to her children, imo.

If dogs can perhaps be used to detect remains from 80 years ago, 10 years must be a cert:


http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/308705/dogs-to-hunt-for-amelia-earharts-remains

The forensic animals will be used to help sniff out the aviator's final resting place on Nikumaroro.
When Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe in her Lockheed Model 10 Electra in 1937, the question of what happened to her would go on to become one of the most enduring mysteries of the modern age.

In recent years however, clues have been found suggesting that Earhart's plane may have gone down somewhere in the remote Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro and that the aviator and her navigator Fred Noonan may have even survived for several days on a small island while awaiting rescue.

Now a new expedition led by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery ( TIGHAR ) is hoping to prove this theory once and for all by journeying to the island and using sniffer dogs to search for the famed aviator's remains.

It will be the group's 12th expedition to search for Earhart in more than 30 years of investigating.

"No other technology is more sophisticated than the dogs," said National Geographic archaeologist Fred Hiebert. "They have a higher rate of success identifying things than ground-penetrating radar."

If the team does find bones on the island, they will be shipped back to the United States so that tests can be run to compare the DNA with that or Earhart's closest living relative.

If there is a match then they will have solved one of the modern world's most enduring mysteries.

Source: National Geographic

Snipped from above:

Researchers from the University of Leicester are working with police forces in the UK to improve the accuracy of police dogs in identifying human remains in criminal investigations.

Andrew wrote:Snipped from above:

Researchers from the University of Leicester are working with police forces in the UK to improve the accuracy of police dogs in identifying human remains in criminal investigations.

Hope they aren't asking Profs from Glenfield Hospital, Leicester for help
No doubt advice will be they are notoriously unreliable. FGS.

It shouldn't be forgotten, that according to statistics the "mistakes" are in general "false negatives"!

Different sort of dog, but rather an amusing insight into how human beings don't understand how a dogs nose works:

http://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/gloucester-news/shop-keeper-sprays-deodorant-bid-129880

Right!

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-06-dogs-chemicals-human.html


A bit more about that University of Leicester stuff.

Quite a bit of O.T., I know, but I wanted to share. After all, this is about dogs.
Well, earlier this afternoon, my dogs went "bananas" in front of the "house". I know them, so I knew this time it was something serious and I dashed out to have a look. It was a snake below one of the hedges. I do have a lot of very useful snakes in the back, but this one was different: a VIPER. I've seen my oldest catch and kill quite a lot of the useful ones, but this got me scared. But there was no way I could intervene. He did his "usual": grab them just behind the head, throw them in the air [a bit like a cowboy with a lasso ...] and then throw them down. Pick them up, swing them, throw them down. After a couple of times, there were 2 half-snakes. Thereafter 1/3, and then 4 and etc. My little one was looking in awn.
She was allowed to half a piece of tail and I recuperated the head, put in the fridge and have it analysed after the week-end. Just to be sure.

Phew.

I'm sure this has been mentioned, but Eddie was criticised in the Haut de la Garenne searches, when no remains were found...but this is not true. Many milk teeth were found as well as fragments of human remains hundred(s) of years old. That doesnt discount Eddie's abilities, it massively promotes them!

Just because the search didn't find what they expected, Eddie was discounted. That is beyond wrong.

Ferrino wrote:I'm sure this has been mentioned, but Eddie was criticised in the Haut de la Garenne searches, when no remains were found...but this is not true. Many milk teeth were found as well as fragments of human remains hundred(s) of years old. That doesnt discount Eddie's abilities, it massively promotes them!

Just because the search didn't find what they expected, Eddie was discounted. That is beyond wrong.

***
I fully agree.

In her book, pg 253, Kate states, "...the chemicals believed to create the 'odour of death ', putrescence and cadaverine, last no longer than thirty days. There were no decaying body parts for the dog to find."

The implication is that dogs can detect remains of bodies for 100s of years, but if relying solely on the scent of death teansferred from a cadaver to objects then this is useless if the body has been taken elsewhere more than 30 days previously. The obvious argument is that as Eddie and Keela were searching after 3 months, their evidence could only be false. However, she only refers to the longevity of the scent of death, NOT blood. In addition I found this, so think again, Kate:

http://www.csst.org/residual_scent.html

In her book she references no studies or research for her conclusions, how can people get away with stating such unsubstantiated facts as evidence and not be held to account?

More unreliability.

“It’s that profile that is particularly identifiable as being human. We ran an independent test with the Police Scotland dog called Ollie, and his dog handler, Ryan Galloway.
“He didn’t react to the toy car but did to the sandal.There were less compounds on the car to detect and the sandal was very high. It was one of the highest samples.
“Both the analytical test in our chemical labs, and the independent blind test with the dog, came up with the same compounds - the same items of interest.
“The dog was able to indicate the scent that is indicative of the compounds related to humans. ”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pioneering-scientific-proof-behind-blood-10858707.amp