Police dogs have many roles. Photo: Graham Dockery |
Dutch
police have a new weapon at their disposal in the hunt for rapists – a dog which
has been trained to sniff out sperm outdoors, RTL Nieuws said on Tuesday
afternoon.
The two dogs have been involved in 80 cases and the trial was so
successful that four more dogs will be trained to work in places where sexual
assaults have taken place, RTL said.
In two cases, the dog’s evidence was
instrumental in solving two sex crimes – one of which involved a young girl who
was knocked off her bike and raped.
The dogs are able to identify specific
sperm up to a week after the incident. This, says RTL, saves on laboratory time
because technicians can identify the sperm sample’s dna straight away, rather
than test all sorts of different items for potential evidence.
The sperm dogs
are part of a team of 120 sniffer dogs, all trained to focus on specific smells,
such as drugs or money.
Last year, the police abandoned plans to train up
sniffer rats. They were going to be used to detect illegal fireworks, fake
cigarettes and human bones but the plan was dropped because they could not be
made ‘operational’.
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