Question

Accompany a dog on a wandering walk and you'll get a clue about why dogs make such great detectives: They'll sniff anything and everything. Dogs have smelling powers many times that of humans. This lets them smell the world in ways we can only imagine. One breed, the bloodhound, has been jokingly described as "a nose with a dog attached."

For some jobs, these scent seekers are the best assistants humans can fetch.

Sniffing for Trouble

Maybe you've witnessed police dogs inspecting suitcases and bags at an airport. Most are trained to recognize the scent of explosives or illegal substances. If they smell something suspicious, they alert their handlers. Medical researchers are also experimenting with dogs that perform odor analyses. They might be able to sniff out cancer and other diseases.

Sniffing to the Rescue

You may have heard of Lassie, a collie of classic TV fame that always comes to the rescue. Search-and-rescue dogs are indeed heroes that deal with dangerous, often life-or-death situations. Some are trained to search for people inside fallen buildings after a disaster, for example. Search teams also use trained dogs when they're racing to rescue lost or missing people in the wilderness. No machine yet invented can match these dogs' ability to track a scent.

Sniffing for Science

Dog owners know that peppy pooches will try to scare off any wild creature they see. But one organization, Rogue Detective Teams, does more than that. It trains rescue dogs to help wildlife biologists conduct research. The dogs learn to find scat—animal poop. They can identify a dozen different species of animals by the scat alone. With the help of these dog detectives, biologists can determine the population size of bats, say, or wolves. The group has even trained a dog to find the caterpillars of the Oregon silverspot butterfly, a threatened species. Such research can help wildlife officials improve protections for endangered animals.

Human investigators and researchers have found many ways to harness dogs' natural talent for detective work. And all dogs ask for in return? As many treats as they can get—and a scratch behind the ears.

Question 1


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This article is mainly about _________.

the research done by scientists to improve protections for threatened species
the training that dogs receive to help them search for people after a disaster
the work of medical researchers who are studying cancer and other diseases
the important ways that dogs use their incredible sense of smell to help humans

Answer 1

the important ways that dogs use their incredible sense of smell to help humans