h a l f b a k e r yBaker Street Irregulars
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Dog Sniff Schools
Billions of dogs - unused resource -- Massively teach dogs to sniff out diseases, and substances, and improve public health :) | |
People keep close to a billion of dogs as pets, with phenomenal
capabilities
to sniff out things, including the capabilities to diagnose diseases. Could
they make us more healthy by doing early diagnoses?
The idea, is that dog schools could help make our canine resources more
valuable.
[link]
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Dogs can sniff out some diseases. I believe this has been
looked into. |
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Yes, but those are "professionals". |
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This idea suggests training companion animals, but since dogs require no encouragement to sniff things (usually the more disgusting, the better) the process isn't that difficult. |
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There would be a serious reliability issue; false positives aren't too bad, but false negatives are concerning. |
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It might be more practical to train a specific cohort, probably spaniels (famous for their olfactory virtuosity) rather than just picking pets at random. |
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The "Pets As Therapy" concept has been recognized as successful, and some schools introduce dogs to help with reading skills and stress. |
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You can't have a cohort of spaniels; they won't stay in their
ranks. You could try an exhort. |
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Dogs are surprisingly adept at communicating to humans with whom they have a working relationship; and they're usually trained for only one searching task. |
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The most critical part of the training for explosives sniffer dogs is teaching them not to retrieve. Spaniels in particular have an innate tendency, once they have found something, to bring it back to their human. That's fine for a dead pheasant or rabbit, but less good if the item is liable to go off bang. |
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Useful if they get the scent of currency paper/ink. |
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And, if you make special automated work stations, like vending
machines, where people can be diagnostically served, dogs
could even have a job to commute to... :) |
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