For sniffing out crime, science backs blood detection dogs

It’s difficult to contemplate the tragedy of losing a loved one and never knowing what happened to them.

Every year, an estimated 38,000 people go missing in Australia. While almost 95% of these individuals are found relatively quickly, 5% become long-term missing persons cases, with many suspected victims of foul play.

British toddler Madeleine McCann disappeared in 2007 on a family holiday in Portugal, and has never been found. Sniffer dogs in this case initially assisted in locating blood samples found in the holiday home.

However, the use of canines has attracted controversy due to misunderstandings about the sensitivity of dogs to reliably find evidence through scent at a crime scene.

But our recent research shows that for sniffing out blood, dogs are one of the best investigative screening tools for expediting crime scene searches.

Read the full story in the UTS Newsroom.