This paper examines the emergence of the modern practice of canine forensics during the years between 1880 and 1920, focusing primarily on British and American contexts. In the dawning age of forensic modernity, emboldened by the belief that traces left at a crime scene could betray the perpetrator and only the trained mind could find such physical clues, the pure-bred English bloodhound appeared to be uniquely focused, and singularly equipped for the tracking of criminal miscreants having fled a crime scene. Breeders, detectives, journalists, lawyers, mobs, victims of crime, and crime writers, came to believe that no other dog hunted traces of human scent like a pure-bred bloodhound.

Core to this method of detection was the unique, distinct relationship between dog and handler. The two shared a bond, apparent in how they worked collaboratively towards the same objectives: the identification of hidden clues at the crime scene, tracking of a human scent trail and, ideally, eventual capture of the criminal. As scent was (and is) largely invisible to human senses, handlers came to develop an observational virtuosity, as at least to an extent, the success of bloodhound pursuit depended upon their ability to interpret their dogs’ reactions to the scent.

In this paper I will discuss the forensic, legal and public perceptions and assessments of this venatic form of deduction, which, in the words of the cultural historian Carlo Ginzberg, ‘binds the human animal closely to other species.’ Special attention will be given to how this mode of detection involved a powerful and seductive form of conjectural knowledge, derived from a distinct partnership between animals and humans. Attending to its resonance within contemporary forensic knowledge and practices, as well as wider ideas about the roles and abilities of some dog breeds in Anglo-American culture, I will try to provide a detailed context for understanding the allure of bloodhound pursuit at the turn of the twentieth century. However, for some the canine nose was far from a reliable tool of detection. Forensic traces that could only be accessed through hunting lore and canine instinct were unavoidably imbued with interpretative problems and ambiguities. To some the abilities of dogs to perceive things which the human senses could not bore a supernatural aura in the wider public imagination and gave the mode of forensics the appearance of infallibility.