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REVIEW article

Front. Allergy
Sec. Rhinology
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/falgy.2024.1445570
This article is part of the Research Topic Veterinary Rhinology and Emerging Insights in Olfaction View all 6 articles

The Manipulation of Odor Availability of Training Aids used in Detection Canine Training

Provisionally accepted
Katylynn Beltz Sloan Katylynn Beltz Sloan 1Michele N. Maughan Michele N. Maughan 2*Caitlin Sharpes Caitlin Sharpes 2Robin R Greubel Robin R Greubel 3Shawna F Gallegos Shawna F Gallegos 4,5Aleksandr E Miklos Aleksandr E Miklos 5Lindsay D Waldrop Lindsay D Waldrop 6
  • 1 United States Secret Service, Washington, DC, United States
  • 2 Excet (United States), Springfield, United States
  • 3 K9Sensus foundation, Lucas, Iowa, United States
  • 4 Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States
  • 5 U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Chemical Biological Center, Maryland, United States
  • 6 Chapman University, Orange, California, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Detection canines can identify numerous substances for which they have been trained. Historically, and a point of ongoing contention, detection canine threshold (i.e., sensitivity or limit of detection) training has primarily focused on changing the weight of the training aid substance used. There has been minimal focus on other principles, such as surface area, confinement, and temperature, which can be manipulated to affect odor availability. That said, trainers have been manipulating odor availability for years without necessarily understanding the governing scientific principles. The aim of this review is to highlight the principles that control odor availability of a substance and how an end user can apply these principles for operational detection canine training needs.

    Keywords: canine, odor movement, scent detection, Training aids, dispersion, Dog training

    Received: 07 Jun 2024; Accepted: 04 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Sloan, Maughan, Sharpes, Greubel, Gallegos, Miklos and Waldrop. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Michele N. Maughan, Excet (United States), Springfield, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.