“We are used to dogs sniffing out explosives, firearms or drugs, but to be able to sniff out optical discs from luggage, that’s new,” Scott Butler, President of the Arab Anti-piracy Union, said.

Butler said the first-of-its-kind experiment spanned several stages.

The two labradors — called Lucky and Flo — were successful in detecting boxes containing the pirated disks on the conveyer belt.

The head of the Anti-Customs Crimes Tracking Unit, Ahmad bin Zaal, said: “We used to subject packages and containers to X-ray checks. These dogs will definitely be a great help in tracing pirated CDs and DVDs. I think the new mechanism will be adopted by the Dubai Customs as soon as it’s approved by the authorities. More than 100,000 pirated disks were confiscated during the past three months.”