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A review by catherine_t
What the Dog Knows: Scent, Science, and the Amazing Ways Dogs Perceive the World by Cat Warren
4.0
Cat Warren was looking for a pup, having recently lost her gentle old German Shepherd. She ended up with Solo, a wild GSD pup from a litter of one, with a personality as far from her last dog as possible. She despaired of ever being able to control Solo until she was advised that what she had wasn't an unruly, impossible-to-discipline creature but a dog with drive. And a dog with drive needs that drive channelled.
Besides drive, Solo had something else going for him: a nose. A nose that could be trained to sniff out anything. Cat Warren chose to train Solo as a cadaver dog, an animal used to search not for live people but corpses. Thus began her journey into the world of law-enforcement, even anthropology, as Solo learned to sniff out the recently dead and even the dead from centuries ago.
What the Dog Knows is a fascinating peek into a world I hadn't known existed. We've all seen search dogs in action, but it never occurred to me that those dogs seeking out the survivors of avalanches and terrorist attacks wouldn't find the non-survivors, except by accident. Cadaver dogs such as Solo are trained to seek out the smells of decomposition, not the smells given off by the living, and their work is equally important. And as with most search-and-rescue teams, cadaver-dog teams are volunteers.
If you're interested in the science behind scent, or the world of working dogs, this is the book for you.
Besides drive, Solo had something else going for him: a nose. A nose that could be trained to sniff out anything. Cat Warren chose to train Solo as a cadaver dog, an animal used to search not for live people but corpses. Thus began her journey into the world of law-enforcement, even anthropology, as Solo learned to sniff out the recently dead and even the dead from centuries ago.
What the Dog Knows is a fascinating peek into a world I hadn't known existed. We've all seen search dogs in action, but it never occurred to me that those dogs seeking out the survivors of avalanches and terrorist attacks wouldn't find the non-survivors, except by accident. Cadaver dogs such as Solo are trained to seek out the smells of decomposition, not the smells given off by the living, and their work is equally important. And as with most search-and-rescue teams, cadaver-dog teams are volunteers.
If you're interested in the science behind scent, or the world of working dogs, this is the book for you.