wanted; sniffer dogs. - Page 2

Sh.., Mithuna, too late now - but I have been in New York for the first time in my life, and I was more than impressed - I HAVE TO come back as soon as possible.

I ran around like a child, totally overwhelmed by this town...

I am too much of a "hillbilly" for New York, but my son thinks about going over there for a year or two now...

As I last understood it, the machines "that would be better"
than dogs are STILL only in development - how long is that
we've been waiting now ? 3 years, 5 ? since we first started
to hear about them. Doggies still got it LOL.

Five years or more ago, $30,000,000 (thirty million USD) and ware housed.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/TSA-Security-Puffers-Pulled-From-Service-116885608.html

 

Machines cannot replace dogs' sense of smell and trainability and reliance.

The reason that dogs aren't used for the work they are so good at is that the rich corporate jerks and doctors can't make money for patents and political wheeling and dealing with Congress for dogs. Every rich jerks wet dream is a new machine that can be patented to detect cancer, or what you are thinking, or explosives etc. so that they can become richer. There are simpler and better test for heart health and breast cancer in existence and being used but doctors, hospitals, Pharma companies, and equipment makers like the current technology that they own or have patents on that is putting money in their pockets. Even the military buys most of their dogs from brokers who are part of the military's nepotism and "good ole boy" network.

Bubba, this has nothing at all to do with health care or doctors. It's to do with puffer machines vs sniffer dogs for airport security. The powers that be have come to the realization that dogs out perform stupid TSA strip searches at airports.

The profit motive is why the mechanical sniffer machines ever existed in airports and why dogs aren't used more. If dogs were shown to be safe, effective, and cheap to operate then the "we say so Corporation" could not develop 10 million dollar sniffer machines that must sit in an air conditioned room to do the same job. The profit motive can stimulate new innovation or it can stifle new or existing answers that cost less and don't make a profit for the rich and powerful. Medical innovation and marketing is the poster child for deceptive and profit driven marketing and that is why I used the example of doctors not adopting technology that they can't get paid to use or recommend. Otherwise doctors would not be paid for writing prescriptions for the newest " butterfly drug" while neglecting a cheaper or older generic by drug companies. The sniffer machines which were first introduced 20 years ago are slower, more prone to operator error, and much more expensive to maintain and buy than dogs.  There was an earlier thread about the supply of sniffer dogs and detection dogs ( service dogs in general ) and the need for a path to developing said dogs which was met with little enthusiasm as I remember.

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/community.read?post=861053-detection-dogs--the-need-exceeds-supply

The airports are are going for dogs for efficiency of moving passengers waiting fr clearance....in other words, the light bulb has finally come on in their little brains that dogs will save them money and get planes off the ground on schedule.

Saw this story yesterday on TV. Could be cutting in to broker, and breeders pockets.

https://m.facebook.com/SoldierDogs/photos/a.260408534038402.62324.225933834152539/758881817524402/

 

Eventually, they settled on Shallow Creek Kennels, a small facility north of Pittsburgh that trains elite dogs for numerous police departments and U.S. government agencies, including Special Operations. The owner, John Brannon, loved the idea and had just the dog in mind. He arranged for fibroblasts to be collected from the dog, which is currently working in Afghanistan and whose identity is classified. Sooam cloned him, resulting in Ghost and Echo, the adorable clone brothers that the Americans had all come to Seoul to collect.
Because every day matters when your goal is to turn a puppy with potential into a dependable, battle-ready working dog, Brannon had given Sooam staffers a strict training and socialization regimen to follow from birth, but it isn’t until the dogs are bounding around on the front lawn after a short adoption ceremony that Brannon is able to get his first good look at them. “I’m impressed. They seem advanced for their age. But you don’t really know until a dog is 12 months what you have physically and mentally,” Brannon says, which is why he doesn’t bother with the imprecise and wasteful process of breeding. It’s far more effective for him to travel to Europe a few times a year to source year-old dogs from one of several kennels he knows and trusts.
One of the most challenging things about great police dogs, Badertscher says, is finding the right puppies and then training them, only to have to retire them eight or nine years later. “Now we have a chance, an idea—it’s only a theory,” he says. Every time you breed a dog naturally, you lose some portion of its greatness, because the genes are diluted by the contribution of the mate. And you’re lucky if one or two dogs out of a litter of eight might have the drive and focus to become the kind of dogs who can find bombs, take fire, and work independently on command—let alone jump out of airplanes at night.
“Ghost and Echo are the first research study to see if this idea works: Can we reproduce these top-quality dogs through cloning” and eliminate most of the margin for error, Badertscher says. Beyond that, he believes, “the next step is giving these dogs a chance to live longer” by using cloning to eliminate problems such as cancer, hip dysplasia, and bad eyesight that can prematurely end a working dog’s career. Two extra years of work would be an incredible boost in productivity, keeping the best dogs working longer and offsetting the increased costs of cloning. “The biggest thing we’ll have to fight,” he says, “is the word ‘cloning.’ ”

Cloning has never produced offspring equal to the donor. Environment is 70% of everything a dog, human, or horse is. Cloned animals have had more health problems and generally shorter life spans than normal animals. Environment influences which genes are switched on or off which is why two identical twins are never the same at 45 years while they may appear identical at 4.5 years before environment has changed their genetic expression.  Defects related to cloning which are documented include LOS ( large offspring syndrome ) and more rapid aging in cloned animals.

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cloning/cloningrisks/