A recent appellate decision continues the trend of Texas courts to reject scent lineup evidence, as to which those courts were once the most welcoming in the country. The case, Texas v. Smith, 2011 WL 480600 (Ct. App. 2011), adds some nuance to prior decisions regarding scent lineups, justifying an analysis. Officers collected scent samples from inside the car in which a murder victim was found in 2003. Two years later, a dog handler, Deputy Keith Pikett, conducted a scent lineup with six individuals, all black males, standing 25 to 30 feet apart...
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Communication Across the Species Divide Helps Find Game, and Food Bowls
When Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in The Common Law that “even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked,” I believe he was thinking of eye contact between humans and dogs. A few mornings ago I tripped over Chloe because she was in an unusual place for her. She looked up at me to assure herself that my clumsiness was accidental, that everything was all right. Or so I imagine. A scientist would argue that I could not interpret...
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Great Danes and Gunpowder
The Great Dane Club of America provides an official standard for the breed, which under the heading of Temperament states that the dog “must be spirited, courageous, always friendly and dependable, and never timid or aggressive.” Writing in 1893, just six years before the Great Dane Club of America was created, Rawdon Briggs Lee portrays the Great Dane as the pit bull of its time, observing that the dog “always had a temper and disposition of his...
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Changing One Word in Definition Assures Dogs Helping Autistic Children Can Be Service Animals
The definition of service animal in the regulations issued by the Department of Justice under the Americans with Disabilities Act has been changed by replacing one word, “handler,” with “individual.” The change, printed in the Federal Register of March 11, 2011, is labeled a correction, obviating the need for any review process. Thus, the most broadly applicable definition of “service animal” in the United States now reads as follows: "Service animal...
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Changing Preconceptions on Breed Aesthetics May Be Necessary to Stop Docking and Cropping
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Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Black Lab Detects 12 Types of Cancer: An Odor Signature Common to All Cancers?
Twelve researchers at various institutions in Japan have described what may be one of the most promising uses of dogs for cancer screening, finding that dogs are particularly accurate for colorectal cancers, even for cancers in early stages. They speculate, however, that there may be a “specific cancer scent” that allows dogs to recognize a wide range of cancers. Only one dog was used in the study, a female black Labrador retriever named Marine,...
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