When the guard and his German Sheppard are checking the reactor room on the carrier Enterprise, why doesn't the dog smell Chekov and Uhura?
ST : TVH - Why does the dog not smell Chekov or Uhura?
- Thread starter ConRefit79
- Start date
She does. The guard ignores t.
No.
The reason given by many sources at the time and I think in the script is that the dog is a "drug-sniffer"---it is not there to look for intruders and isn't interested in alerting when it smells humans.
Also, drug-sniffing or human sniffing dogs BARK when they detect what they are trained to detect.
The dog did not bark.
script excerpt.....
119 EXT. NAVAL BASE - NIGHT 119
U.S.S enterprise, floodlit, secure. Shore Patrolmen
on duty. A general sense of tight security.
120 INT. CORRIDOR - U.S.S ENTERPRISE 120
A SAILOR in dungarees and a DRUG DOG patrol the empty
corridor. As they near CAMERA a familiar SOUND (THE
BEAM-IN) is heard faintly. The dog stops, his ears go
up in surprise. The sailor has not heard the sound.
He whistles to the dog and urges him on down the
corridor.
_________________________________________________________
So the dog knows there is someone there but doesn't react the way he would if he had smelled marijuana.
The reason given by many sources at the time and I think in the script is that the dog is a "drug-sniffer"---it is not there to look for intruders and isn't interested in alerting when it smells humans.
Also, drug-sniffing or human sniffing dogs BARK when they detect what they are trained to detect.
The dog did not bark.
script excerpt.....
119 EXT. NAVAL BASE - NIGHT 119
U.S.S enterprise, floodlit, secure. Shore Patrolmen
on duty. A general sense of tight security.
120 INT. CORRIDOR - U.S.S ENTERPRISE 120
A SAILOR in dungarees and a DRUG DOG patrol the empty
corridor. As they near CAMERA a familiar SOUND (THE
BEAM-IN) is heard faintly. The dog stops, his ears go
up in surprise. The sailor has not heard the sound.
He whistles to the dog and urges him on down the
corridor.
_________________________________________________________
So the dog knows there is someone there but doesn't react the way he would if he had smelled marijuana.
Neither Chekov nor Uhura were apparently carrying drugs.
But the dog at the airport recently did smell meth on Nichols baggage!!
irony!
This isn't even a little accurate.
Service dogs' tells are usually anything but barking. Dogs bark, even the well-trained ones. Using it as a primary indicator of suspected malfeasance would cause huge problems, the least of which would be the potential false positives. But imagine the potential legal quagmire if a DEA officer was granted probable cause every time his dog barked.
Usually tells are other auditory signals, like the dog will snap her jaws in a specific patter or make a specific grunting sound or whine.
S&R dogs usually use non-auditory signals like a specific scratching pattern, sort of like a puppy-paw Morse code signal. Imagine a whole team of dogs crawling around and enclosed building debris area barking every time one thought he smelled something.
Good thing McCoy wasn't there with his magic kidney pills.Neither Chekov nor Uhura were apparently carrying drugs.
LOL--thanks for that info.
we've all seen movies or documentaries where the dog scratches at what he has been trained to smell. I used the word "Bark" very loosely. I should have said alert the handler.
In the movie the dog wasn't "looking" for intruders--he was "looking" for drugs and ignored Chekov/Uhura if he did smell them.
The script states the dog hears the beam-in sound, but it doesn't trigger him to "notify' the handler.
Not sure if the way it was edited and sound-mixed made it clear the dog heard the sound.
At any rate, it wasn't seeking intruders--it was trained for drugs.
Oh by the way does "the guard ignore it." ???
No the dog doesn't react the way it is does when it finds what it is been taught to alert for.
we've all seen movies or documentaries where the dog scratches at what he has been trained to smell. I used the word "Bark" very loosely. I should have said alert the handler.
In the movie the dog wasn't "looking" for intruders--he was "looking" for drugs and ignored Chekov/Uhura if he did smell them.
The script states the dog hears the beam-in sound, but it doesn't trigger him to "notify' the handler.
Not sure if the way it was edited and sound-mixed made it clear the dog heard the sound.
At any rate, it wasn't seeking intruders--it was trained for drugs.
Oh by the way does "the guard ignore it." ???
No the dog doesn't react the way it is does when it finds what it is been taught to alert for.
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Just wondering - why should the dog react to the smells of Uhura and Chekov? There are thousands of people aboard that carrier (well, perhaps not when she's pierside, but still). Why should the apparent presence of a further two make the dog react at all?
It's pretty unlikely the dog would be keeping a record on the thousands of "authorized" smells and comparing these against that record. It's also very unlikely the dog would know that the presence of a person behind this door is something it should react to, while the presence of a person behind that one is something it should ignore. Again, there are thousands of doors or other features to consider there, too much for the poor little canine brain.
A shipboard Marine contingent might have a drug-sniffing dog, but that's probably not something they would take with them when responding to an intruder alert. The patrol might also have a generic guard dog, trained in subduing people the handler indicates as in need of subduing - and that type of service dog would be a natural addition to a team responding to a potential intruder threat (especially while the ship is at port and theoretically vulnerable to all sorts of lowlife or innocent but lost folks, not just enemy special forces, thus warranting a wide range of possible responses). Yet neither type of dog would have any business responding on its own to random people it senses aboard the ship.
Timo Saloniemi
It's pretty unlikely the dog would be keeping a record on the thousands of "authorized" smells and comparing these against that record. It's also very unlikely the dog would know that the presence of a person behind this door is something it should react to, while the presence of a person behind that one is something it should ignore. Again, there are thousands of doors or other features to consider there, too much for the poor little canine brain.
A shipboard Marine contingent might have a drug-sniffing dog, but that's probably not something they would take with them when responding to an intruder alert. The patrol might also have a generic guard dog, trained in subduing people the handler indicates as in need of subduing - and that type of service dog would be a natural addition to a team responding to a potential intruder threat (especially while the ship is at port and theoretically vulnerable to all sorts of lowlife or innocent but lost folks, not just enemy special forces, thus warranting a wide range of possible responses). Yet neither type of dog would have any business responding on its own to random people it senses aboard the ship.
Timo Saloniemi
^Exactly.
Dogs don't react to the smell of humans unless the handler gives them a "sample" of a specific person being sought--as we've all seen in countless movies about prison escapes/lost children/ missing persons! LOL.
So the dog would not have shown any of his alert signals even if he did smell them.
I think the joke of the script was that the dog heard the sound of the transporter---which the audience, of course, is familiar with, but the handler either didn't hear or didn't pay attention to.
I'm not sure if in the final version they dubbed in the transporter sound at the exact right time as the dog was onscreen.
Dogs don't react to the smell of humans unless the handler gives them a "sample" of a specific person being sought--as we've all seen in countless movies about prison escapes/lost children/ missing persons! LOL.
So the dog would not have shown any of his alert signals even if he did smell them.
I think the joke of the script was that the dog heard the sound of the transporter---which the audience, of course, is familiar with, but the handler either didn't hear or didn't pay attention to.
I'm not sure if in the final version they dubbed in the transporter sound at the exact right time as the dog was onscreen.
In the novel, the dog's reaction caused the handler to react a bit. However, he joked about radioactive coke.
The dog did react. It just didn't indicate. The handler is going to ignore most reactions if the dog doesn't indicate, otherwise it would make for a really long day.
Service dogs a trained to act a lot like computers. They'll indicate only to what they're instructed to, and they can be pretty specific.
Tell one to search for kung pao chicken from Chang's House of Chinese off Market street, then that's exactly what he's going to sniff for. He could smell a million other things that make his nose twitch, his ears perk up, and his tail wag, but until he indicates with his tell, the handler will just ignore him.
Given that he was an internal base patrol canine, he was probably sniffing for abnormal ordinance, bombs and what not. I'm just assuming because it would be unlikely they'd be actively be patrolling for intruders that deep inside the ship. Though that part did seem unusual as you couldn't have a bomb without an intruder.
Rest assured, given how he reacted, the dog did small Pavel's vodka-soaked sweat.
If the movie's pretense is that that he didn't smell the two, then Nicky has a lot to learn about dogs.
Service dogs a trained to act a lot like computers. They'll indicate only to what they're instructed to, and they can be pretty specific.
Tell one to search for kung pao chicken from Chang's House of Chinese off Market street, then that's exactly what he's going to sniff for. He could smell a million other things that make his nose twitch, his ears perk up, and his tail wag, but until he indicates with his tell, the handler will just ignore him.
Given that he was an internal base patrol canine, he was probably sniffing for abnormal ordinance, bombs and what not. I'm just assuming because it would be unlikely they'd be actively be patrolling for intruders that deep inside the ship. Though that part did seem unusual as you couldn't have a bomb without an intruder.
Rest assured, given how he reacted, the dog did small Pavel's vodka-soaked sweat.
If the movie's pretense is that that he didn't smell the two, then Nicky has a lot to learn about dogs.
It isn't.
The way the onscreen events unfold, we don't even know it was a service dog. For all we know, the sailor in question was permitted a pet (or was taking care of one belonging to a top officer), and was giving it some exercise in areas of the ship where personnel wouldn't be a distraction...
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
No.
In the pre-UA days, it was.
Just the enlisted ones...
The screenplay specifically says the dog is a drug-sniffing dog. Also, at the point where the dog notices Uhura and Chekov, they had just beamed in; nobody calls for an intruder alert until they notice the power drain, so the sailor and dog were just on a routine drug patrol.
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