Madeleine McCann General Discussion Thread #27

[natty01]

Is this the Tanner sighting again? It's only a drawing! She never got a good close-up look, she was not close enough to see shoes or bare feet, especially at night .

I know but surely the guy who came forward did so because he looked like the person in the picture , if his kid had been wearing shoes he either wouldnt have thought it was him or when the police did the picture of him next to the drawing his version would have shown the kid in shoes or slippers .

 

[BOESP]

It looks to me that your saying that HRD or "cadaver" dogs will only alert to scents produced from a dead body and not from a living human being. From what I've read that's not accurate.

<snipped accidentally="">

These experts say that a positive HRD dog alert can be caused by material from a living person. I agree with them.

Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - the cadaver dog

Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - Human Remains (*cadaver) Detection (HRD) dog questions and answters **NO DISCUSSION**

BBM. I did not say that at all. In fact, I said it would be expected that Eddie would find any and presumably all blood, which is what he did if Eddie found blood from Gerry McCann and two officers.

Of course there can be exceptions and errors but to discredit the dogs in the way I've seen here seems to say the McCanns must be innocent because the police dogs are incompetent. That is not, imo, accurate. The data collected by the dogs and their handler has to be analyzed and correlated with other information. It isn't "stand alone" data.

I also don't understand why some posters use statistics on the accuracy of cadaver dogs and scent-hounds to discredit inclusive evidence. Yet statistics on child homicide are ignored that clearly show it is usually a parent or other close family member or someone closely associated with the family who kills the child.

We will have to agree to disagree.</snipped>

 

[Meteor]

I'm not sure that there would be detectable levels of human decomp scent from old blood at all of the apartments. That's why LE uses HRD dogs to pinpoint where to collect samples for testing in a lab. Positive alerts can help LE find useful evidence. But not all positive alerts are useful. Finding the DNA of a person residing in a home is to be expected and doesn't help at all in an investigation.

Then there's the problem of dog handlers unintentional "cueing" their dogs to alert. That doesn't mean that the dog is wrong. It's only doing what it thinks it's master whats him to do. The problem is with the handler and training. I think that everyone can agree that human beings can make mistakes. I'll get a link and post more about that.

<modsnip> Every household in Portugal will have been bled in at some point or other including holiday homes and the same would be here in the UK. If Eddie could get confused by those events where blood had been accidentally lost in innocence then Eddie is just completely useless.
We've been bleeding for decades and he would be totally useless.
He smells DEATH not blood.

 

[RANCH]

In a recent UC Davis (University of California) study involving scent detection dogs it was found that 17 of 18 police dogs teams alerted to the presence of target odors when none where present and residual odors where unlikely. The dog handlers where led to believe that drugs and or explosives where in a church. There where no drugs or explosives in the church but the dogs alerted anyway, sometimes multiple times.

This study is from 2010 after Martin Grime used his dogs in this case. He may have changed his training to help prevent this kind of "cueing" from happening after this study came out . I don't know if he has or not but I'm sure he has read this study.

Handler beliefs affect scent detection dog outcomes

In conclusion, these findings confirm that handler beliefs affect working dog outcomes, and human indication of scent location affects distribution of alerts more than dog interest in a particular location. These findings emphasize the importance of understanding both human and human–dog social cognitive factors in applied situations.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-010-0373-2/fulltext.html

 

[Cherwell]

I know but surely the guy who came forward did so because he looked like the person in the picture , if his kid had been wearing shoes he either wouldnt have thought it was him or when the police did the picture of him next to the drawing his version would have shown the kid in shoes or slippers .

<modsnip>. I imagine that he came forward because he remembered that he'd been on the spot around the time of the sighting.

 

[Luna15]

Please could someone kindly tell me if Websleuths have an astrology thread relating to Madeleine? I have searched but cannot see anything.

Thank You

 

[RANCH]

Of course there can be exceptions and errors but to discredit the dogs in the way I've seen here seems to say the McCanns must be innocent because the police dogs are incompetent. That is not, imo, accurate.

I don't understand why some posters use statistics on the accuracy of cadaver dogs and scent-hounds to discredit inclusive evidence. Yet statistics on child homicide are ignored that clearly show it is usually a parent or other close family member or someone closely associated with the family who kills the child.

We will have to agree to disagree.

I'm not sure what we should agree to disagree on. I never tried to discredit the dogs or say that they are incompetent. I don't like to use statistics much myself. I find them irrelevant most of the time.

I'm talking about HRD dogs alerting to decomposing blood or other donor material from a living human being. In my opinion they can alert to that.

 

[BOESP]

I'm not sure what we should agree to disagree on. I never tried to discredit the dogs or say that they are incompetent. I don't like to use statistics much myself. I find them irrelevant most of the time.

I'm talking about HRD dogs alerting to decomposing blood or other donor material from a living human being. In my opinion they can alert to that.

BBM. It may have been anecdotal information but the article was, imo, intended to discredit the dogs by using information gathered to specifically make a point. That is a form of using statistics.

Other than some IDIs, I haven't seen anyone deny the dogs could alert "to decomposing blood or other donor material." That's what the disagreement is about -- the dogs know what they are doing and logical analysis of what they found is useful information that might help solve this case or provide additional leads imo. Maybe I've misunderstood and most posters here do trust the dogs.

 

[SapphireSteel]

Please could someone kindly tell me if Websleuths have an astrology thread relating to Madeleine? I have searched but cannot see anything.

Thank You

ah the Forensic Astrology forum, I loved that thread.

It's closed.

<modsnip>

 

[RANCH]

BBM. It may have been anecdotal information but the article was, imo, intended to discredit the dogs by using information gathered to specifically make a point. That is a form of using statistics.

Other than some IDIs, I haven't seen anyone deny the dogs could alert "to decomposing blood or other donor material." That's what the disagreement is about -- the dogs know what they are doing and logical analysis of what they found is useful information that might help solve this case or provide additional leads imo. Maybe I've misunderstood and most posters here do trust the dogs.

I'm not sure what article your referring to. Member Meteor has some posts above stating that he/she doesn't think that an HRD dog will alert to the scent of decomposing human blood from a living person because it will make the dog "useless." It doesn't appear to me that Meteor is going with an IDI.

I certainly do trust the dogs. To a point. It's their handlers training and deployment of them that could be a factor.

MOO.

 

[Luna15]

ah the Forensic Astrology forum, I loved that thread.

It's closed.

<modsnip>

That's a shame

 

[Little Jedi]

From what I have read the basic difference between a dog alerting to blood and a dog alerting to cadaver, is;

One will freeze on the spot, with their nose as close to the source of the blood as possible, but not touching.

The other by barking when alerting to the scent of cadaver.

 

[RANCH]

From what I have read the basic difference between a dog alerting to blood and a dog alerting to cadaver, is;

One will freeze on the spot, with their nose as close to the source of the blood as possible, but not touching.

The other by barking when alerting to the scent of cadaver.

That's interesting. Is this how all HRD dog handlers train their dogs? Or is this only how Martin Grime trained his?

 

[Little Jedi]

That's interesting. Is this how all HRD dog handlers train their dogs? Or is this only how Martin Grime trained his?

That I'm not exactly sure of, it was from M. Grimes' explanation of how they worked.

Not sure if this helps:

All British police dogs, irrespective of the discipline they are trained in, must be licensed to work operationally. To obtain the license they have to pass a test at the completion of their training, and then again every year until they retire. The standards required to become operational are laid down by the (ACPO) sub-committee on police dogs and are reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that training and licensing reflects the most appropriate methods and standards.

 

[RANCH]

That I'm not exactly sure of, it was from M. Grimes' explanation of how they worked.

Not sure if this helps:

All British police dogs, irrespective of the discipline they are trained in, must be licensed to work operationally. To obtain the license they have to pass a test at the completion of their training, and then again every year until they retire. The standards required to become operational are laid down by the (ACPO) sub-committee on police dogs and are reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that training and licensing reflects the most appropriate methods and standards.

Thanks Little Jedi. Do you know that it's illegal to use human tissue in training dogs in the UK? It's not allowed in the "Human Tissue Act 2004".

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/30/contents

 

[SapphireSteel]

Regardless of whether you think the dogs are wrong or not, there is still one glaring question.

Dog alert > swab > DNA found > DNA consistent with Madeleine.

The point is, if the dogs are so useless, why did they find non-blood DNA at the alert sites?

 

[SapphireSteel]

Thanks Little Jedi. Do you know that it's illegal to use human tissue in training dogs in the UK? It's not allowed in the "Human Tissue Act 2004".

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/30/contents

If you donate your organs they can use it for anything.

Skin is an organ

Personally I'd be thrilled to be laid out on a body farm somewhere.

 

[Little Jedi]

Thanks Little Jedi. Do you know that it's illegal to use human tissue in training dogs in the UK? It's not allowed in the "Human Tissue Act 2004".

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/30/contents

No ! I didn't know that.
I did read that they used pigs blood for training.

 

[RANCH]

Regardless of whether you think the dogs are wrong or not, there is still one glaring question.

Dog alert > swab > DNA found > DNA consistent with Madeleine.

The point is, if the dogs are so useless, why did they find non-blood DNA at the alert sites?

If you donate your organs they can use it for anything.

Skin is an organ

Personally I'd be thrilled to be laid out on a body farm somewhere.

BBM

Just so everyone knows, I don't think that HRD dogs are useless. What is non-blood DNA?

If you read the "Human Tissue Act" there are limitations as to what your donated organs can be used for in the UK. Dog training isn't one of them.

Well, skin can be removed from a live person and it can then decompose so your right that would work in training a HRD dog. So would blood from a live person that was left to decompose.

MOO.

 

[BOESP]

BBM

Just so everyone knows, I don't think that HRD dogs are useless. What is non-blood DNA?

If you read the "Human Tissue Act" there are limitations as to what your donated organs can be used for in the UK. Dog training isn't one of them.

Well, skin can be removed from a live person and it can then decompose so your right that would work in training a HRD dog. So would blood from a live person that was left to decompose.

MOO.

BBM. DNA from a source other than blood.