Wow. Everything in that article reads as an admission that canine units are utterly useless, even as the article tries to defend their use. The primary argument seems to be that dogs need constant and immediate reinforcement in order to be effective, and therefore double-blind studies are not effective measurements. This same argument would also imply that canine units are not effective in the field, since the handler wouldn't be able to provide accurate reinforcement.

Wow!

> Results in confusion and frustration in the canine – As stated previously, under doubleblind testing, the determination of the team’s accuracy cannot be made at the time of the alert. Therefore, to provide or withhold a reward from the canine under such a condition can result in confusing and frustrating the canine, which will lead to an increase chance of incorrect responses.

Juxtapose that with the real world. I am not an expert but I sincerely doubt that K9s in airports get treats every time they correctly identify a illicit source. That is why they are trained constantly(I presume). Testing for one hour or one day will likely not have an effect on the long term ability of the dog to correctly sniff illicit sources.

The NNDDA article is addressing the "double blind attack", which in my opinion is their way of redirecting from the notion that the K9s should not be used as a gold standard to ascertain probable cause. I would have to think more on the subject to comment on reasonable suspicion. If they truly believed in the idea that handlers are benign, they would embrace the double blind process.

Reminds me of audiophiles. When the scientific method is the enemy, you are dealing with some massive psychological effects that people refuse to acknowledge.

Suppose you have a grand piano recording set up something like this https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59e4eb2464b05f... or like this https://i0.wp.com/royerlabs.com/photos/rec_tips/piano/Mancin...

Not only you have a multitrack recording to play with when mixing/mastering, but the tracks are naturally frequency weighted due to spatial positioning. Mix these tracks into stereo with some panning and play it on a decent set up with large-ish (say 5m) scene. You end up with unnaturally large grand piano spanning the whole scene. It does not sound "natural", but gives fake perception of "scene".

The whole audio field is weird constant chase between production, recording and reproduction (e.g. in the 90s V shaped frequency profile used to be quite prevalent to sound good on boomboxes) which gives perfect breeding grounds for audiophilic mysticism. No set up will ever be able to "naturally reproduce" both rock concert and chamber orchestra.

I have noticed that there are two types of audiophiles. The first kind has certain collection of records and strive for a set up that gives them the same goosebumps they felt first time hearing the recording/concert, the second kind lives off giving goosebumps to their audiophile friends bringing their own records. Both live in constant grind for perfection that they will never achieve.

> I sincerely doubt that K9s in airports get treats every time they correctly identify a illicit source.

Why do you doubt that? When people say "treat" they don't mean a full day at the spa. It's a bite of something tasty, or a bit of play with a tennis ball while the dog handler says "goood booooooy".

they absolutely treat the dog for finding contraband. that’s how you train them to alert on the smell. the problem is that this means they might alert for nothing at all, just because they want a treat

If that would be treated seriously, it would mean that detector dogs are impossible to use in case where they need to find or detect something.

So they are completely useless.

Is nndda.org actually serious representation of them?

Oh, they're extremely useful, just not for the thing you think. They manufacture cause for searches. It's a form of evidence laundering.

And yes, the NNDDA is one of several organizations that certifies police dogs.