Fort Drum archaeologists partner with canine forensics team to study ancestral sites - Army.mil

Skyler: Welcome, welcome, welcome to Frosty the Dog — the podcast that celebrates everything wonderful, wild, and just plain joyful about our best friends. I'm Skyler, your host, and I am so glad you're here. This show is named in honor of a very special dog — Frosty, the best boy — and every single episode, we celebrate him and all the incredible dogs who make our world so much better. Frosty, this one's for you, buddy. Skyler: Before we dive in, a huge warm thank you to our sponsors. First and always, our primary sponsor and namesake, Frosty — the best boy in the whole world. We also want to thank Ada, who helps clients integrate A I into their workflows — smart, forward-thinking stuff; Ago Consulting — that's "Ahh-Go" — silicon development consulting from A I to SoC, these folks know their stuff; and Zen Semiconductor, an umbrella company with a portfolio of companies spanning the silicon industry. We are so grateful for all of them. Skyler: Okay, so today on the show — we've got detection dogs, and a brand new study on what their personalities actually look like on the job. We've got archaeology — yes, archaeology — and a nose that can sniff through centuries. We've got a massive CBD study covering forty-seven thousand dogs that turned up something genuinely surprising. We're talking service dogs, real dogs, working dogs, beloved dogs. It is a full and wonderful episode. Let's get into it. Skyler: Alright, thread one — Dog Science and Discovery. And I want to start with something that honestly made me sit up straight when I read it, because it just perfectly captures what dogs are capable of. You know how we always say — and I think Frosty would back me up here — that a dog's nose is basically a superpower? Well, science keeps proving it, over and over again, in ways that just blow my mind. Skyler: So here's the story. Fort Drum — that's a U.S. Army installation up in northern New York — their archaeologists have partnered with a canine forensics team to help study ancestral sites. Now, when I say ancestral sites, I mean the kind of places where people lived, buried their dead, left traces of their lives, sometimes thousands of years ago. These are sacred places, historically significant places, and finding them — really finding them, without disturbing them — is genuinely hard work. Skyler: And that's where the dogs come in. Canine forensics teams train dogs to detect human remains. That's a whole field unto itself, and it is remarkable. These dogs can find evidence of human presence that has been underground for an extraordinarily long time. They're not just sniffing for something recent — they're detecting trace organic compounds, decomposition signatures, things that linger in soil long after a person has been gone. Skyler: Think about that for a second. A dog, trotting across a field, can tell you — hey, right here, something happened here, a long time ago — with a level of sensitivity that no ground-penetrating radar or surface survey can fully match. It's not that technology isn't useful; it absolutely is. But the dog brings something else entirely. That nose processes smells in a way that is somewhere between ten thousand and one hundred thousand times more sensitive than ours, depending on the breed and the scent. Skyler: And what I love about this partnership at Fort Drum is that it's respectful. The whole goal is to locate and protect these sites — to know where they are so that construction, training activities, anything that happens on that land, can avoid disturbing them. The dogs are helping preserve history. They're helping honor the people who came before. I mean — if Frosty had a specialty, I would want it to be something that cool, right? History dog. Best boy archaeologist. Skyler: Now, speaking of what makes a dog extraordinary at a specific job — I have to talk about a study that just came out in the journal Nature, and it is genuinely one of the more fascinating pieces of dog science I've come across recently. Researchers looked at detection dogs — the kind used in law enforcement, customs, search and rescue, you name it — and they studied the behavioral profile of these dogs in detail. What they found is that the behavioral makeup of a detection dog is actually tuned to the dog's specific role and their specific environment. Skyler: So what does that mean? It means that a dog working explosives detection at an airport doesn't just have good training — they have a behavioral profile, a personality configuration, if you will, that fits that environment. High focus, able to filter out distractions, comfortable around crowds, noise, unfamiliar smells that aren't the target. Whereas a dog doing wilderness search and rescue might have a very different profile — more independence, more problem-solving drive, more comfort with physically demanding terrain. Skyler: And the really cool part is that this isn't just about training — it's about the match between a dog's natural behavioral tendencies and what their job demands. The researchers found that this alignment matters enormously for how effective and how happy a working dog is on the job. A dog who is well-matched to their role doesn't just perform better — they seem to thrive. And that just resonates with me so deeply, because it's a reminder that these dogs aren't just tools. They're individuals. They have personalities. And when we honor that — when we match the dog to the work — everybody wins. Skyler: Frosty, of course, was a master of his domain. His domain being the couch, and his specialty being napping with maximum cuteness. And honestly? Perfect match. Skyler: Okay, thread two — Dogs and Humans. This is always my favorite thread, because this is where the bond lives. And today I want to talk about something that is close to my heart and also a little bit complicated, and I think it's worth talking about honestly. Skyler: There's a bill working its way through Wisconsin's legislature that's designed to crack down on fake service dogs and also require prescriptions for emotional support animals. And I know that might sound like dry policy stuff, but I promise you — this is actually a deeply human and deeply dog story, and it matters a lot. Skyler: So let's back up. Service dogs — real, trained service dogs — are extraordinary. We're talking about animals who can guide someone who is blind through a crowded city, detect a diabetic emergency before the person even feels it, interrupt a seizure, retrieve dropped items, open doors, alert someone who is deaf to a fire alarm. These dogs go through years of rigorous training. They are working animals in the truest sense. And the legal protections they have — the right to go anywhere with their person — exist because they are essential. Not a convenience. Essential. Skyler: Emotional support animals are a different legal category, and they serve a genuinely important purpose too. For someone with depression, anxiety, PTSD, or other mental health conditions, having an animal companion can be profoundly therapeutic. There is real research behind this. These animals provide comfort in a way that matters clinically. Skyler: But here's where it gets complicated, and I think we have to be honest about it. In recent years, there has been a real problem with people misrepresenting their pets as service animals or emotional support animals to get access they're not entitled to — on planes, in restaurants, in housing. And this isn't just a minor inconvenience. When an untrained dog enters a space and behaves unpredictably, it can actually endanger people who depend on real service dogs. It erodes trust. It creates barriers for the people who genuinely need these animals. Skyler: So Wisconsin's effort here is about protecting the integrity of a system that exists to help real people with real needs — and real dogs who have done the real work. Requiring a prescription or documentation for emotional support animals, and creating clearer consequences for misrepresenting a pet as a service dog, is — at least in intention — about making sure the dogs who have earned their place can keep doing their jobs safely. Skyler: And look, I think about Frosty here. Because Frosty was not a service dog — he was a beloved family dog, a companion, a best boy of the highest order. But I have so much reverence for the dogs who are trained to serve in that capacity. Those dogs and their handlers — that bond is something else. It is one of the most profound relationships I think humans have ever formed with another species. Skyler: There's a reason we call them working dogs, but I always want to push back gently on the word "working" as if it implies they don't also love it — because the research really does suggest that well-trained service dogs find deep satisfaction in their roles. They're engaged. They're purposeful. They're bonded to their person in a way that is mutual and real. Skyler: And that's what's worth protecting. The real thing. The genuine bond. The dog who has trained for years and whose person's life literally depends on them. That dog deserves every legal protection and every bit of public trust we can give them. Skyler: I also just want to say — if you have a dog who helps you emotionally, who gets you through hard days, who makes life feel more manageable — that is real. That matters. Frosty was that for so many people just by being himself. The world is better when dogs are in it. We just want to make sure the systems we've built to honor the most extraordinary among them stay strong and trustworthy. Skyler: Okay, thread three — Understanding Dogs. How are we learning more about our best friends, and what does that understanding look like in practice? Today I want to talk about a study that is big — like, really big — and also a little surprising in its conclusions. Skyler: Scientists analyzed data from over forty-seven thousand dogs whose owners reported using CBD — that's cannabidiol, a compound derived from hemp that doesn't have the psychoactive effects of THC. CBD products for pets have absolutely exploded in popularity over the last several years, and there's been a lot of enthusiasm and also a lot of uncertainty about whether they actually work and how. Skyler: So this study is one of the largest looks we've had at CBD use in dogs, and here's what they found. First — CBD is most commonly used in older dogs dealing with chronic health issues. Pain, inflammation, mobility problems — that's the primary use case. And that makes a lot of intuitive sense. Owners of senior dogs are often looking for options, especially when they've exhausted more conventional approaches or want to complement them. Skyler: But here's the surprising part — the behavior finding. Long-term CBD use was linked to reduced aggression in dogs. That's interesting. Aggression is a complex behavior with a lot of roots — it can come from pain, from fear, from anxiety, from past experiences — and the fact that CBD use showed an association with reduced aggression over time is a finding worth paying attention to. Skyler: Now — and this is the scientist in me talking, but I promise I'll keep it fun — association is not the same as causation. This was observational data, meaning researchers were looking at what owners reported, not running a controlled experiment where some dogs got CBD and some got a placebo. So we can't say CBD caused the reduction in aggression. It's possible, for example, that dogs whose pain was being better managed — for whatever reason — expressed less aggression because they were simply more comfortable. Pain and aggression are really linked in dogs. Skyler: What's also interesting is what didn't improve — other anxious behaviors. If you have a dog who gets anxious during thunderstorms, or separation anxiety, or generalized nervousness, the data didn't show those behaviors getting better with CBD use. That's a really useful nuance, because there's a lot of marketing out there suggesting CBD is kind of a cure-all for dog anxiety, and this study pumps the brakes on that a little. Skyler: The trend was also strongest among owners who lived in states with more cannabis-friendly laws, which the researchers noted could reflect things like greater access to products, greater owner familiarity and comfort with CBD, or even differences in how owners report behaviors based on their attitudes toward cannabis. Skyler: What this study really represents is something I find exciting about where dog science is going — which is scale. We now have the ability to gather data from tens of thousands of dogs at once, through owner surveys, through apps, through veterinary records. And that scale lets us start to see patterns that would have been invisible before. It's not perfect data — self-reported owner observations have their limitations — but forty-seven thousand dogs is a lot of dogs. That's a lot of signal. Skyler: And this is where A I is starting to play a genuinely interesting role in understanding our pets. When you have that volume of data — behavior reports, health records, treatment histories — A I tools can help identify patterns, flag correlations, and generate hypotheses that researchers can then go test rigorously. It's not A I replacing the science; it's A I helping scientists know where to look next. Skyler: I think about this in the context of Frosty, honestly. Wouldn't it be something if we could have known, in real time, what was going on with him? What he was feeling, what was bothering him, what was making him happy? That's the dream — not just for the science, but for the love of it. We want to understand our dogs better because we love them and because they cannot tell us in words. Skyler: They tell us in other ways, of course. A tail wag that's loose and wiggly versus tight and high. Ears forward versus pinned back. A dog who leans into you versus one who turns away. We've been reading these signals for thousands of years, and now we're building better tools to read them more accurately. Behavioral science, neuroscience, A I — all of it in service of the oldest relationship. Skyler: And I just find that beautiful. I really do. The fact that we care enough to study forty-seven thousand dogs, to send forensic dogs to walk across ancient ground, to work out the precise personality profile of a dog who finds hidden things — it all says something wonderful about us and about them. We are trying, genuinely trying, to understand them better. Because they deserve it. Skyler: One small note before I wrap up — there was a story this week about a stray dog on the Blue Ridge Parkway who was injured after showing aggressive behavior toward park visitors. I mention it only to say — if you ever encounter a stray or unfamiliar dog acting unpredictably, please give them space and contact local animal control or the relevant authorities. Stray dogs are often scared, in pain, or disoriented, and the kindest thing is to get them proper help safely. Okay — that's my practical dog note for the week. Skyler: And that brings us to the end of today's episode, and I just — I love this show. I love it because every single week, these stories remind me of why dogs matter so much, and they all come back to the same simple truth: dogs make life better. They make us more human. They ask so little and give so endlessly. Skyler: Frosty, the best boy, the reason this show exists at all — buddy, every episode is for you. Thank you for inspiring all of it. We miss you, we celebrate you, and we carry you with us every single time we sit down to talk about dogs. Skyler: This has been Frosty the Dog, brought to you by Frosty — the best boy — along with Ada, Ago Consulting, and Zen Semiconductor. If you loved today's episode, please subscribe, leave a review, share it with your dog-loving friends, your kids, your neighbors, anyone who needs a little more joy in their day — which is everyone. Check the link in show notes for more on all the stories we talked about today. Stay curious, stay kind, and go give your dog a big hug from me and from Frosty. We'll see you next time.