Rediscovering History, One Sniff at a Time 🐾🦮
Nicky Matthews Mystery series
A number of years ago, an article popped up about a non-destructive method of finding historical and ancient human burials using specially trained cadaver dogs.
The Institute for Canine Forensics exposes dogs in training to volatile organic compounds (VOCs; ie, cadaverine and putrescine) given off by human bodies after death. The oldest burial site found by ICF-trained dogs? 9000 years(!)
Dogs have 8 times the number of olfactory receptors compared to humans, plus, they are domesticated, which makes them better for training than, say, bears or sharks. Plus, a dog or cat on the cover of a mystery is a HUGE draw for readers. ; )
Frankly, the use of an ICF dog in a mystery practically writes itself. Imagine the protagonist is searching for a sacred burial ground because of recent pot hunter disturbances and finds a dozen murder victims from an unknown serial killer.
Hmm. Maybe Nicky and Franco (Nicky Matthews Mysteries) need a Detection dog ....
AI Image dreamed up by the author and perplexity.ai