Importance of canine identification in the Hungarian forensic practice

Hungary has an old long cynophilic and cynologic tradition, and a significantly high canine population. However, during the last years, several (even lethal) attacks to man were observed. In some cases, the human remains on the dog’s body or stomach content can prove the animal as perpetrator. Lacking this evidence, the availability of certain canine-specific polymorphic STR loci is a significant tool for identification of canine individuals by their remains in the victim’s clothes or the environment of the attack to solve such cases.Ten canine-specific STR loci were analyzed by fluorescently labeled multiplex PCR. The automated data collection was performed and compared applying fluorescent ladder. The forensic practice requires the availability of sequenced allelic ladders—which are constructed—and data concerning the frequency of the alleles in the local canine population (population studies are examined continuously in mixed and purebred populations). D 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.