Analysis: sniffer dogs, service dogs and canine actors are examples of doggie employment opportunities available to highly trained pooches
What could be better than sharing your workspace with your canine buddy? Dogs make great employees because they are intelligent, good tempered, obedient and extremely competent workers. They also have a set of natural skills that an expert dog handler can cultivate and nurture. Sniffer dogs, service dogs and canine thespians are examples of doggie employment opportunities available to highly specialised pooches.
Sniffer dogs
Did you know that a dog's sense of smell is around 2,000 times more sensitive than ours? This is because dogs have an amazing olfactory system and know exactly how to follow their nose. Canines have a colourful history as sniffer dogs and many of these highly skilled dogs live exciting lives.
Sniffer dogs are star performers and precious assets to organisations worldwide because they are highly regarded for their incredible ability to detect odours. Indeed, they can extract smells from extremely complex environments such as busy airports, sports stadiums or shopping centres and find the exact spot where the item they have been trained to find is located. A well-trained sniffer dog can detect smells that are over 10 years old. This skill can be applied when searching for missing persons.
We need your consent to load this comcast-player contentWe use comcast-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Brainstorm, how seach dogs find missing people
Interestingly, sniffer dogs are not able to multitask and therefore become specialists trained to locate just one specific thing. Some sniffer dogs are specially trained to find money – an extremely useful talent - while others are trained for drug and bomb detection. There is also evidence that dogs can identify certain diseases such as cancer through a patient’s odours, found in samples of their breath, blood and urine.
The fire service employ sniffer dogs to detect traces of accelerants, helping to investigate cases of arson. Meanwhile, the gardai, customs and security agencies rely on a dog’s superior detection of odours to discover illicit substances, fight crime and terrorism, pursue criminals, fraudsters or wanted people and to protect national borders.
Even though cybercrime has evolved and become highly sophisticated, so too have dog handlers and the specialist training they now deliver to dogs cannot be underestimated in helpimng to clamp down on elusive criminals. Believe it or not, sniffer dogs are now being trained to find hard drives, USB sticks, DVDs, mobile phones and sim cards. Just like Sherlock Holmes, sniffer dogs are also extremely talented doggy detectives.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Archives, Des Cahill reports for RTÉ News in 1985 on the introduction of newly trained Garda sniffer dogs Shane, Max, Rocky and Tag
Service dogs
Service dogs or assistance dogs are recognised under Irish law and are highly skilled working dogs. They have been specifically trained and registered to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with special needs. These include guiding individuals with impaired vision, fetching items, assisting an individual during a seizure, retrieving medicine, alerting individuals with impaired hearing to intruders or sounds and so much more.
Some examples of service dogs include:
- Guide dogs for people with visual impairments
- Mobility-assistance dogs
- Autism assistance dogs
- Seizure dogs and other medical-assistance dogs
- Hearing dogs for people with hearing impairments
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, Prof Carmel Mooney from the UCD Veterinary School on why they need blood donations from dogs
Guidance dogs have been used by visually impaired people since after the First World War and are the most protected assistance dogs in the world. However, it is only since the 1990s that service dogs have been trained to support people with a wider range of special needs.
For example, the use of autism assistance dogs is a relatively new concept, premised on the belief that a therapeutic relationship can develop and enrich both lives once a bond has been established between child and dog. Studies have shown that the mere presence of a service dog can be enough to help calm an autistic child who may be experiencing high levels of anxiety and distress. The main role of this dog is to support the child to develop life and independence skills while keeping the child safe from danger when out and about. These dogs are loyal and quickly become a child's furever bestie offering a simple, non-judgmental relationship while demanding nothing but love in return.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Archives, Paul Maguire reports for RTÉ News in 2004 on the Emily Dogs Project in west Cork which trains service dogs for people with a range of special needs.
Dog actors
Canine thespians have performed in front of the camera for years and thoroughly enjoy unleashing their inner mutt, let’s face it nothing makes a film more heart-wrenching, emotional and wholesome than an adorable dog as the main character or sidekick. From Toto in 1939's The Wizard of Oz to classics such as The Fox and the Hound or Marley & Me, dogs in films celebrate and portray the incredible bond that these furry lovelies have with their humans.
The versatility of a dog cannot be underestimated in the diversity of roles that a typical dog actor is expected to perform. These canine stars are primed to understand their handlers’ cues, requiring intensive training and rehearsal so that a dog’s action is not only correct, but also correctly timed and responsive to fit with an actors’ dialogue. In a dog-eat-dog world, only the very best make it to top.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
