You Are Not My Handler! Impact of Changing Handlers on Dogs’ Behaviours and Detection Performance

Detection dogs and their handlers must be a bonded team. Changing a dog’s handler, which occurs in certain organisations or through change of ownership, may generate team conflict and reduce detection performance. Through testing dogs at detection tasks with a familiar and unfamiliar handler, we found that dogs scored higher for detection accuracy with their familiar handler. The dogs were also less distracted with their familiar handler. These results suggest that changing a dog’s handler influences both their detection accuracy and behaviours. This may impact how working dogs are managed and their welfare