Kevin, If my post insulted you; I apologize for that. My intent was not to insult.

DFrost

Apology accepted. Please join in on how we can, as a group, further the application of manufactured aides, or decline their use if that is the correct course of action. I am open to all information on the subject.

 Quote: David C.Frost

 Quote: Austin Moon

I was at the NAPWDA workshop the master trainers put them in a regular problem along with explosives and narcotics. They ran the problem blind.

Is this the double blind study you were attributing to Deputy Moon?

In addition, I've not seen the results, nor was I aware of a double blind study conducted by Mr. Reiter or the French police.

DFrost

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you to clarify this statement. I have been away on business. The study i was attributing to Deputy Moon was embodied within the following statement made by him:

 Quote: Austin Moon

I just recently went to an FBI training on TATP. My k9 has never been on actually TATP but has been on ScentLogix TATP. I can tell you that my k9 alerted the first go around on the blocks with 1 gram of TATP being used.

The studies conducted by Dan Reiter and Yann Lesourd are were studies that they personally (and individually) carried out to see if they could (or should) depend on these training aids. Neither of them did publish their data; however, Dan Reiter and I now do some work together on odors and Mr. Lesourd did write a testimonial on the ScentLogix webpage about his experience.

 Quote: kevin sheldahl

Please join in on how we can, as a group, further the application of manufactured aides, or decline their use if that is the correct course of action. I am open to all information on the subject.

Sorry for the late response as i have been away on travel to Jamaica, to VLK's K9 Olympics, and utterly busy trying to make a marijuana training aid. To set the records straight, I have only met Kevin once (at the LAWDOG) conference and have never met Ed. I never had to call Ed or Kevin to beg them to do this product evaluation nor did they ask me for any money for this evaluation to be done, or for its results to be published on Ed's website. In fact, the only conversation/interaction that i have ever had with Ed was when he welcomed me to the site and told me to behave myself or be kicked off, when i first registered as a Leerburg forum user! Right Ed :-) In my mind (and since there have been others in the past that have asked me for money for the performance of an evaluation on these products), they (Ed and Kevin) must have a real passion for K9 detection and for the advent of real solutions to the problems normally encountered during detector-K9 training (as it relates to training aids). For this disposition, I salute them.

With this being said, I need not comment on any of the previous threads and let bygones be bygones. Let's get down to business and learn more about manufactured training aids!

I have mentioned in earlier threads that ScentLogix training aids can be used as a tool that enables scientific enquiry of detector K9 evaluation and training processes, and provides a platform from where different standards and theories can be formulated and tested, both quantitatively and qualitatively. I will use the data that Kevin has presented as an example to how this can be done by giving you an insight into how I will perceive/address his data.

Test 1:
The odor of each ScentLogix training aid represents the odor of up to 1000 Ibs of explosives and narcotics, so virtually no cooking time is required of the training aids before starting your search. When such an aid is placed in a static air environment such as a classroom, and allowed to cook, air vapors will fill up the classroom and the classroom itself will quickly become "the bomb" i.e, it will become the object to detect. Therefore a test scenario of this sort is used to evaluate a K9's proficiency in detecting large bombs and only a K9 well trained in detecting large amounts of odor will be able to perform well.

My scientific considerations are that a K9 should be able to detect a material at first pass, so the detectability of a material by a K9 at 1st pass is a most important criteria for assessing the efficacy of the K9. The 2nd pass information is used to confirm the 1st pass information. In this case, since we are dealing with large amounts of odor (due to the way the problem was posed), we can assume that there may be errors made by the K9's during the 2nd pass as they might have become saturated by the odor by the time it is their turn to make the 2nd run. Furthermore, a K9 that does not alert on both passes (0,0)can be assumed not to know the odor for the specific training scenario of using either static (stagnant) or dynamic (moving) air conditions.

Taking this fact into consideration, data of test #1 therefore shows that there was a 100% DETECTION RATE BY ALL K9'S AT FIRST PASS, since the K9s that did not alert at first pass also did not alert at 2nd pass, it can be assume that they did not know the odor of large explosives and excluded from the test. So, from the K9's that know the odor of large amounts of the explosives the following conclusions can be made from the data:

100% detection of TNT by all K9s at first pass.
100% detection of Semtex by all K9s at first pass.
100% detection of SP by all K9s at first pass.
100% detection of Dynamite by all K9s at first pass.
100% overall detection of RDX by all K9's – All K9's are good at detecting large amounts of RDX.
#5 is the least proficient K9 in the group when it comes to detecting large amounts of explosives.
#5 cannot detect large amounts of SP or Dynamite explosives.
#1 cannot detect large amounts of SP.
#6 and #3 are very good K9's in detecting large amounts of explosives: This is because they only had one miss each during the second pass (#3 might have a slight edge because it alerted to smokeless powder during the 2nd run).

Kevin's mention of the strong smell of Semtex is evident in the data: all K9's alerted during 1st pass but fewer k9's could detect it during 2nd pass. This is because the amount of odor generated by this time (in a static environment) would have made it represent so large an explosive that only the best of the K9's will be able to detect it. So, it can be stated that #3 and #6 are very good detectors of large amounts of Semtex.

Test 2:
This test scenario is very different from the first. This test was run outdoors where there is a dynamic air environment. In this case the air moves and all the scent tendrils are well separated to enhance detection. Here, a K9's nose is seen at its best, and due to the formulation of this product (and when well trained on it), K9's can be seen to home in on the material from as far as 500 yards. The following conclusions can be made from the data:

100% detection of all explosives by all K9's at first pass.
100% overall detection of TNT, RDX and Semtex by all K9's.
100% overall detection of all explosives by #2 and #5.
100% overall detection rate for #5; so #5 has been trained on SP and Dynamite!
From test 1 and 2 data, it is evident that #5 and #2 are good dynamic-air detection K9s and not-too-good static are detectors.
I wonder why #3 did not detect dynamite during 2nd pass in test 2, just like in test #1?

Test 3
Here, Kevin mentioned that the class room was larger, so, although restricted by walls there will be an amount of air circulation within the classroom. However, depending on the sit time allowed for the aids to cook, this may still be considered static odor. B missed TNT twice, so it can be assumed that he has not been trained to detect large amounts of TNT. Other evident information is the following:

100% detection of all explosives at first pass by all K9's.
100% overall detection rate of all explosives by #A, #C and #E, and only 1 miss by #D.
#B does not know TNT odor. If it does, then why is he the only one missing it? (#B spoilt what would have been a 100% overall detection rate by all K9's).

Test 4:
Here, we go to a dynamic airflow system again where conditions are similar to test #2. The following conclusions can be made from the data:

100% detection of all explosives at first pass by all K9's.
100% overall detection of RDX, Semtex and Dynamite by PSDs #A, #B and #C.
Only 1 miss by all K9's. If not for #D results would have been 100% overall detection of all explosives by all K9's.
Why, like in test #3, did #D miss dynamite twice at 2nd pass?

Test 5:
Here, we have a quasi-dynamic air flow system, since the training aid is contained within a bag that is slightly vented. The following conclusions can be made from the data:

100% detection of TNT by all K9's at first pass.
#B had a 100% overall detection of TNT compared to test #3 where it had a 0% detection of the same material
So #B can detect TNT in a dynamic-air environment (small amounts of material) and not in a staic environment (large amounts of material).
Since #A had performed well in previous occasions with Smokeless and TNT (flawless detection in tests 3 and 4), this proves that #A was having a "bad" day!
If not for the bad day, there would have been a 100% detection rate of all explosives.

Further general observations:

(1) All the K9's detected the Smokeless Powder at one time or the other during the course of the tests, no matter what they have been trained with!

(2) There were situations when large amounts of explosives were completely missed (0,0 with static odor) but none with dynamic odor. So, the K9's need more training using large amounts of explosives.

This represents my analysis of the data provided by Kevin and I look forward to questions from the forum about this. Thanks to Kevin for a wonderful preliminary evaluation and to Ed for allowing this forum to thrive at this level.

Phew!!! Now, we are all scientists and I await your comments.

Morning all,

I am an ex Police dog handler (UK), now working for myself in civvy street.

Just to add my 2 pennies worth, I recently took receipt of a number of scentlogix training aids, having researched them for some time.

I do not profess to be any kind of scientist or academic, just a bloke who handles a bomb dog!

My dog has only ever been trained on the 'real deal' as far as explosives go. He's never even had a whiff of any kind of pseudo, or indeed any scentlogix product in the past.

I set up a scenario in a fully working vehicle recovery garage, whereby I hid a scentlogix TNT training aid in a tool box, leaving this roughly 20 minutes to soak.

The dog was tasked to search on his own, off lead (as is the norm over the pond) and after about 10 minutes of systematically searching the area, he hit on the tool box in question first time.

I later repeated this (Obviously with different hides) with both the semtex and Dynamite aids.

He had no problems in locating the items and tracing back to source.

I can only say positive things about the scentlogix training aids. For a dog who has only ever been trained on the real stuff, with all the usual distractions etc to indicate on the aids first time, having never trained on them before certainly opened my eyes.

Thank you David for producing your products. I will try and post a video clip when I have the time to film my dog working.

Paul