A recent development in non-invasive grave location techniques is the use of Historic Human Remains Detection (HHRD) dogs. These dogs are specially trained to detect the scent of buried human bones. Proponents of this techniques claim the dogs can differentiate between human and animal bones and can detect graves exceeding 100 years of age and located up to 6 feet beneath the surface. Determining the effectiveness of HHRD dog surveys is problematic because ground truthing is rarely allowed.
This report describes a scientific study testing the effectiveness of HHRD dogs and comparing HHRD dog results against geophysical survey results at multiple, unmarked, burial sites…
