Flashback Friday: Worst scientific job ever? Doggy breath odor judge.

Photo: flickr/ insertnamehere.99999If you find the smell of stinky dog breath gross, you are not alone. And there are plenty of companies ready to take your money to prevent or cure your pooch's smelly breath. But how do they know that any of these products actually work? Well, apparently there are people who are specially trained to judge dog breath odors. And you thought your job was unpleasant. Assessment of oral malodor in dogs. “This paper describes a methodology for measuring and assessing changes in canine oral malodor with the intent that it can be used to evaluate products designed to make pets’ breath more acceptable to their owners. Ten judges, able to discriminate and rank malodorous chemical compounds, were trained as a formal sensory panel by an expert in sensory evaluation techniques.The panel was assembled to determine changes in oral malodor resulting from dietary manipulation. A dry experimental food served as the test food, and a commercial dry dog food as the reference food. Dogs fed the experimental food developed significantly less oral malodor (p '< 0.01) than when they were fed the control food.” Related content: NCBI ROFL: Fresh squeezed orange juice odor: a review.NCBI ROFL: Smelly Week: Individually identifiable body odors are produced by the gorilla and discriminated by humans.NCBI ROFL: New plan for health care reform: train monkeys to perform endoscopies.NCBI ROFL: Morning breath odor: influence of treatments on sulfur gases.