Working for the Working Dog Community: Decades of Detection Canine Research at Battelle

Raised in rural northwest Ohio, Kevin Good grew up with dogs – both his family’s companion pets and several friends’ hunting partners. Today, his job at Battelle creates a much different relationship with man’s best friend.  

Good oversees a team that has consistently won contracts to conduct research, development, testing, and evaluation (RDT&E) in support of the working dog community, specifically the detection canine teams helping protect the nation’s infrastructure, events, air travelers, and warfighter. Interesting is the view of his career path and how it typifies a Solver journey—pursuing a profession in the science, technology, engineer and math (STEM) field provides a foundation, then life events and new interests conspire to change the career arc.

Shortly after earning a bachelor’s degree in environmental and hazardous materials management from the University of Findlay, and while working to finish his master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Toledo, Good was interviewing with environmental consultants and water treatment companies. Then, the events of September 11, 2001, changed that path.

“All the funding and R&D opportunities shifted to the defense against terrorism, which led to me being introduced to a Battelle recruiter at a job fair,” Good said. He accepted a researcher position with Battelle’s aerosol science group shortly thereafter. 

In the early days of his career, while performing more traditional engineering tasks, “I became aware of a research program seeking to help detection canine teams safely interdict hazardous substances at border crossings,” he said. “They needed an able-bodied person willing to work in a dynamic environment and able to incorporate good scientific practices into an atypical assignment. The novelty appealed to me.”

Two decades later, the RDT&E continues at Battelle in bigger and better versions. Good’s team works to support, understand, and advance the use of dogs for vapor-based detection of targeted contrabands. The team doesn’t raise, train or keep dogs; rather it brings science and technology to the dog culture. “We work with security programs, the military, and law enforcement. We design, conduct and report on R&D that guides policy, improves capability, protects the handler and the dog, and informs operational decisions.”

A typical study for the team might be an assessment of a canine’s ability to generalize from a trained target substance to a different but similar substance—that way, smart decisions can be made about what to add to or subtract from a training kit. “The foundation of the test is paramount,” Good said. “Without an intelligent approach and impeccable procedures, you’ll get data that is unknowingly undermined by the incredible intelligence and perception of dogs. They learn so fast, they adapt, they react —if the test is not designed and executed perfectly, you’ll get a data set that is compromised, and thus conclusions and recommendations that are unreliable.”

Good’s team doesn’t just design tests for dogs—they reach across scientific specialties at Battelle —think chemists, material scientists, mathematicians and computer programmers coming together to bring technology and innovation to the art of canine training/handling. They have collaborated across the organization to successfully develop and field multiple pieces of software, conduct genotypical and phenotypical evaluations in pursuit of meaningful biomarkers in puppies, devise electrostatic-dissipative sample housings so trainers can work safely with sensitive explosives, and perform mathematical risk-based assessments to guide decisions on canine team deployments.