[gigamonkey]

Uh, they use beagles for sniffing for all kinds of things: drugs, bombs, even termites.

That said, German Shepherds are an interesting case because, as I understand it, their breed standard is actually a behavioral standard: they have to be able to perform a certain level of obedience, tracking, and bite work (think big leather gloves) to get papers.

[robin_reala]

People used to train pigs to hunt truffles, but more recently beagles have been the go-to animal as they tend not to eat the prized catch.