Police in Melbourne were recently taught a valuable lesson in dog training after their team of Australian sniffer dogs, supposed to track drugs, were sent back for re-training when it was discovered they could only track the talcum powder used to hone their noses.

The dogs are trained to react to the scent of cocaine by sitting down next to the person they can detect it on. Unaware that the white powder used since January to train the seven dogs was not in fact an illegal substance, the Australian Federal Police are now conducting a probe to find out whether any illegal drugs have gone missing.

Alternative explanations for the mix-up, labelled “embarrassing” by the Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner, are that the drugs were cut heavily with another substance or that the training bag was mislabelled.