WASHINGTON — Police don’t have to extensively document the work of drug-sniffing dogs in the field to be able to use the results of their work in court, the Supreme Court ruled today.

Instead, Justice Elena Kagan wrote for a unanimous court, courts should apply the same tests to dog sniffs they do when they look at other issues of whether police have probable cause to take an action.

“The question — similar to every inquiry into probable cause — is whether all the facts surrounding a dog’s alert, viewed through the lens of common sense, would make a reasonably prudent person think that a search would reveal contraband or evidence of a crime,” Kagan said. “A sniff is up to snuff when it meets that test.”