Originally Posted by
yandosan
Yep -- that's exactly what they do. And if the cop doesn't like you, he prompts the dog into a fake "alert." I don't know about anyone else, but I want our Constitution back.
Cool, a voice of sanity amid all the legalese and bureaucratic BS. Is there anyone out there that really thinks dogs can sniff a joint inside luggage from 30 meters or can differentiate illegal bodies from legal ones or detect child porn (yes, they really ran news stories on this). If so there's a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you for really cheap.
One might think such things are so advanced it is "impossible" for a dog to do but one must remember to keep in perspective the difference between human and canine olfactory capabilities. Human have about 5 million scent receptor cells in the nose while most dogs have well upwards of 100 million scent receptor cells and some breeds have several times that. Plus, a significant portion of a dog's brain is devoted to processing smell compared to a miniscule portion of the human brain.
Scent travels very far, in very unusual ways and can last for a very long time (think of smelling curry in hallway an hour after someone who regularly eats a lot of curry passed through; a dog will be able to smell that curry many days later). Some breeds of dogs have much keener sense of smell than others and are capable of detecting scent in which molecules of the scent are only a few parts per million - think bloodhounds tracking someone who ran through a forest or field. So detecting the smell of marijuana or something else from that far away is completely within the realm of possibility. Identifying the source from that far away is a different matter.
Dogs cannot smell the legal status of a person; they can only detect the presence of a human scent (see post above for more detail).
No-one claims dogs can detect porn; rather, dogs can detect and locate the specific scents given off by electronic devices such as memory cards and hard drives. In Jared's case, as with most pederasts, he kept his stash of kiddie porn on a memory card that he hid in his home office; the dog merely detected the hidden card and oops, further investigation revealed a substantial amount of disgusting and illegal material.
Dogs can be trained quite easily to detect and locate just about any particular scent - just takes some time and a good trainer. Electronics detection dogs are often used to find contraband cell phones in prisons or prevent people from bringing them inside. Nothing new or unusual about that.
Now, if I can verify your deed of ownership to that bridge.....