We made page 4 of the Mosman Daily today!
The Mosman Daily spoke with a local vet, who dismissed the idea that dogs could smell something that had been in the ground that long. This has caused a very interesting response from a lot of people who read todays article. I have received 18 telephone calls in the last two hours from people who live in the local area, who have observed their own dogs doing this over a period of years - and they are digging a bit too far to just be looking for rabbit or possum scats as pro-biotics . (If you ever needed any better reason than just common sense, not to tongue kiss with your dog.....!)
However, expecting a local vet to be across everything involving dogs, cats, hamsters, mice, birds, snakes and every other kind of animal is a very tall order - so it isn't a big stretch to simply say that she just wasn't aware of what forensic investigators and archaeologists are currently using cadaver dogs to find.
Currently, there is an archeologist in South Australia who is using a trained Labrador dog to find aboriginal remains up to 700 years old. In the USA, cadaver dogs are regularly used to locate civil war graves in the eastern states such as Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, companies such as Bigman Geophysical regularly use cadaver dogs to find civil war graves, ( 150 years old) and even revolutionary war graves ( 200 years plus old). The strike rate that they have of dogs alerting, to proven, found graves confirmed by a ground penetrating radar, was 85%!
I want to thank all of the people who have rung, called and emailed today - and Hera the Ghost Guard dog and I look forward to seeing you on a tour with us, soon!