Book Review: Sniffer Dogs - How Dogs (and Their Noses) Save the World

Sniffer Dogs: How Dogs (and Their Noses) Save the World, by Nancy Castaldo (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 154 pp, 2017, $16.99, ages 10-12)

We picked up Sniffer Dogs when we recognized Riley* on the back cover in his iconic 9/11 photo: we had met Riley, the 911 Golden Retriever, the following year at dog camp. We had breakfast together and fell in love.

We were also intrigued by the happy black lab in a life jacket on the cover.

So, we wanted to know what other kinds of sniffer work a dog could do.

Not Your Usual Dog Hero Book

Sniffer Dogs is not your usual dog hero book, with a few pages and photos describing a hero dog, followed by another and another. Instead, Sniffer Dogs begins with a long intro chapter about the incredible sniffing ability of the dog with a few examples.

"Dogs smell every scent. Sort of like the way we hear. We can walk into a room and hear lot of different sounds in one place: the voices on the television, a dishwasher running, and the click-clack of fingers on a keyboard." (p. 16) This is simply the best explanation of the sniffing ability of our friend the dog. We may smell the delicious aroma of spaghetti cooking on the stove but the dog smells the garlic and the tomato and the basil and. . . . 

A dog has been described as a nose with four feet and a tail! And after reading this book, you will understand and agree.

The Layout

With only seven long chapters, Sniffer Dogs goes into great detail on the kinds of sniffer dogs and highlights a few of them. However, with such great friendly photos,

the young reader will not realize the chapters are so long.

Did you know that dogs can sniff if someone's blood sugar is too high or too low and indicate that in advance to the diabetic? Did you know some dogs, eco-dogs, can sniff whale poop and then scientists can determine what that animal ate and even what species it is? Of course, you probably know that some dogs are trained to track lost people by sniffing the ground or the air and others 'work' in airports sniffing luggage for contraband, but did you know dogs can be trained to sniff out unmarked graves, even hundreds of years later? 

The chapter on history and the chapter on the science of smelling are unusually fascinating. The majority of Sniffer Dogs tells the stories of individual dogs, their training and daily work.

Meet the young puppy training to be a sniffer dog, find out the difference between an active alert and a passive alert, learn why a dog is not trained to locate explosives and narcotics. To them, it's all a wonderful game that precedes tug with their favorite person.

What We Liked

We liked the astounding facts interspersed throughout and we loved the photos of dog heroes that look just like the family dog. It turns out the author had actually visited the dogs she depicts. We liked the glossary at the end and the list of books and references, even if the author wrote down every conversation and newspaper article in addition to a few books and scientific papers.

And What We Would Change

Author Nancy Castaldo is obviously not a veterinarian nor a dog trainer: she has many animal books to her name. We would have preferred, however, that the highlighted paragraph on page 39 about alpha dogs and dominance and packs had been left out. 

All in all, Sniffer Dogs is outstanding with lively mesmerizing fascinating photos, just a few facts, and enough information on history and specialty dog training to make the reader begin to look into becoming a K9 handler in a few years.

*Riley on the back cover