riffraff • 5 days ago

But dogs are trained to sniff truffles and definitely stick to it for long, and the process (sniff around, signal to handler, get reward, repeat) seems the same.

2
ajb • 5 days ago

Well, that's just what I read...

I'm no longer sure it is accurate. Looking at their website APOPO now actually use dogs as well. They say that rats and dogs are complementary, but they give an advantage of the dogs but not of the rats

Also, I ran across this article criticising the rats effectiveness: https://nolandmines.com/APOPO%20rats.html . I have no way to assess it's accuracy.

xeonmc • 5 days ago

But are there more truffles in a forest than there are mines in a minefield?

1 reply
riffraff • 3 days ago

I'm not sure, I remember going truffle hunting (a grand-uncle owned truffle dogs) and spending a whole morning not finding anything.

Luckily, I never had to go mine-hunting.