Study on the Viability of Canine Nose Pattern as a Unique Biometric Marker.

The uniqueness of the canine nose pattern was studied. A total of 180 nose images of 60 dogs of diverse age, gender, and breed were collected. The canine nose patterns in these images were examined visually and by a biometric algorithm. It was found that the canine nose pattern remains invariant regardless of when the image is taken; and that the canine nose pattern is indeed unique to each dog. The same study was also performed on an enlarged dataset of 278 nose images of 70 dogs of 19 breeds. The study of the enlarged dataset also leads to the same conclusion. The result of this paper confirms and enhances the claims of earlier works by others that the canine nose pattern is indeed unique to each animal and serves as a unique biometric marker.