Terror or Terriers

Small dogs can be trained to detect things like drugs, chemicals and explosives and then to bark and yap mercilessly at the perpetrators until they give up in desperation.

Of course, this is just sarcasm, however it is probably true with the first part -- the detection of things. Already there are beagles and bloodhounds and various other dogs used for detective work, airport sniffing, etc., and dogs are also used as soldiers or police. They are much braver than humans since they don't know all the things that can hurt them so acutely as humans.

Image via Wikipedia

There are other things that dogs can do, such as mark suspects with substances that can be tracked by machines or by other dogs so that the perpetrators can be followed, hopefully to their lair. This can also be done by machines, especially when the risk to a dogs life is in the balance. A dog's life may not be worth a human's life but most people would prefer that neither humans or dogs had to be sacrificed for military or police actions.

Anyway, even if small dogs are not accurate they can still be useful. If only one in three people carrying bad chemicals in airports or other crowded locations is detected, that is all the better. So it seems that such use should be made -- there are plenty of small dogs waiting to be put to sleep. They can be put to use instead.