Putting a Dog’s Sniffer to the Test! We’ve Struck Oil!

  Posted on March 23, 2012  by Joy of Living  No comments

Party Marty back on the scene: Hey! I am one cool and busy cat! Glad to be back on the blogging front today! I just read some intriguing news and had to share. Just when I thought dogs were good for nothing…other than for simply teasing…I heard a story about how some dogs are being successfully trained by a Norwegian company called Sintef to find sources of oil! What? Dogs instead of high-tech radar equipment? You have to be kidding me! A dog is a dog, for crying out loud. I mean, look at Jessie over there, just snoozing on the floor and doing nothing to enhance her resume!

However, I remained intrigued. Evidently, two breeds of dogs are very competent in sniffing out crude oil sources – the Border Collie and the Dachshund! Yelling over to Jessie:  Hey, girl! Guess you won’t be able to apply for this job! Go back to sleep. It’s what you do best!

Sintef has been training dogs for three years to located sources of oil underground, under ice and they have even been trained to locate oil spills! They are trained much like a dog that sniffs for bombs, but the work is far more intense and the journeys are far greater. The studies have suggested that the dogs’ innate sniffing power is far superior to the fancy and expensive radar equipment they use. However, according to the company, the dogs’ happiness is what comes first! Let me guess….they pay the dogs in Milk Bones!

How about the cat’s happiness? Let’s see if they can train Jessie! Do they have an oil-sniffing boot camp for diva dogs that live in the suburbs?