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Dogs as Detectives

Dogs are one of our most important weapons in combating terrorists and criminals who try to smuggle drugs and explosives. Although science has developed some very sensitive vapour detecting equipment, nothing yet beats a well trained lab, collie, or spaniel when it comes to sniffing out illegal drugs, and explosives.

A dog’s olfactory system occupies a large part of its brain. A dog can be trained to respond to as many as twelve different explosives as well as several different types of drugs. Dogs can even learn to ignore the masking smells of perfumes, which smugglers might use to disguise the scent of illegal substances. Human smell receptors adapt rapidly to a particular odour, so that it soon begins to fade. However, dogs retain their capacity to detect and distinguish odours over time.

However, technology is catching up. We are now able to build machines called mass spectrometers, that can identify minute traces of the individual substances used in explosives or drugs. Sniffer machines which are based on this technology are able to detect traces as small as one trillionth of a gram. Machines, which are large enough to allow people to walk through, are now being installed at some airports.

So next time you fly, be thankful for the combination of technology and animals that helps keep you safe.

The very fact that we need sniffer dogs underscores a human tendency. While we’re not all criminals, in certain areas of life we tend to try to get away with things that we sense are wrong.

This kind of behaviour can become so habitual that we are blind to it. Maybe there are shortcuts we’ve taken so often that they are part of our routine. Safety issues highlight this - chronic speeding, ignoring seat belts, rolling through stop signs, not wearing protective gear when working with power tools or playing potentially dangerous sports. We know we’re taking chances, but because we’ve never been caught or had a serious accident, we just carry on playing the odds.

On the other hand, maybe there are certain behaviours we engage in that we understand carry some hazard, but we do them so often they’ve become part of who we are. Health issues serve as the best quick examples here - smoking, unsafe sex, sedentary life-style, consuming large amounts of salt, fat, and sugar. We assume we can get away with things like this since we’ve never felt the ill effects of them.

Yet, when we look around us, we see evidence that not everyone does get away with ignoring safety considerations, taking care of their bodies and engaging in other behaviours which are hazardous. Rather than ignoring the unspoken message of car crashes, serious sports and workplace injuries, broken health and early death, let’s consider them carefully and resolve to take steps to avoid them in our own lives.

I suspect that even more common than trying to get away with things we know are not good for us in the physical realm is our attempt to do it in the spiritual realm. I believe there’s a reason for this: Physically, we see the fall-out of dangerous behaviour in the lives of others. Spiritually, we don’t - at least not nearly as much.

Sometimes, we take calculated risks. We know certain behaviours are “wrong,” yet we take a chance on getting away with it, perhaps of not being held accountable. We know certain things are “right,” yet at the time, they seem to take so much effort and don’t seem to matter so much, so we take a chance on them not being all that significant.

According to the Bible, none of us will be able to escape a final evaluation and receiving the consequences of our attitudes and actions. The principle of sowing and reaping is applied well to this situation. We will all harvest the outcomes of the moral choices we make and the course of action we pursue.

David Humphreys and Ron Hughes