Pup7

Oh, I read the humor in what you posted. I've read other posts on here that seemed to be confused on how the system works. Before I worked dogs, I didn't know either, so I thought this might be a good time to slip in some detail.

I'm a bit loathe to explain what a cued hit could look like, because (and I'm not trying to be insulting here) to someone who's unfamiliar some actual hits can look bogus. Usually what you'll see is the dog seems confused and looks to the handler. The handler will - sometimes unconsciously - 'cue' the dog, by leaning forward or looking the dog directly in the eye. The dog's expression changes and he'll respond, thinking that he's wrong and the handler's right (to anthropomorphize what's just occurred). Inexperienced or poorly trained handlers are notorious for this, usually through no fault of their own. The mantra in dog school is 'trust your dog', but keep in mind that the dog is still a dog (I've seen stuff like the lasagna incident myself, and the NCO did the right thing - dog's done, time to quit, he's not going to work anymore. They get bored just like we do.) Sometimes the dog will THINK he's right, and not trust his own nose, and he'll look to the handler for the answer, right or wrong. At any rate, the fault is with the handler, not the animal, and generally it's down to poor training, no good practicing, or inexperience.

(You can do this with your dog as well - look at a dog hard enough and he'll just about do whatever it is you need him to do in many situations. Dogs are domesticated enough that looking to humans for guidance is instinctual - they've proven this in multiple experiments - and when they feel confused or when they're picking up nervousness from upleash they can easily be cued.)

Back to responses.

I've had an explosives dog - with a nose sensitive enough to find one round from an M16 hidden in the landing gear of a C5 (he was great for demos!) - 'false hit' on a trunk during a random gate check. The guy opened his trunk and the wind shifted and the dog almost yanked me off my feet and stuck his head in the trunk WITHOUT DIRECTION FROM ME and immediately responded. The officer in question swore to God he never transported any sort of firearms in it - and was freaking out until I asked him if he did a lot of gardening. "Oh," he said, "my wife bought some fertilizer yesterday and put it in the trunk. We always get Wing Yard of the Month." All of which told me his car was frequently used for gardening supplies. Problem solved, even though I still had to re-search the vehicle. It's bad when an explosives dog has a good enough nose to sit on a residual scent for obvious reasons. I knew this about the dog and had to take it into account.

(Of course, had my dog been a drug dog, OSI would've been called, because a drug dog calls for a different set of circumstances. Judgement is everything.)

When that little girl in the wheelchair was secondary screened by TSA for explosives and it made headlines, the simple question to ask would've been, 'has your mom done a lot of gardening? have you been to Home Depot recently?' I mean, I'll buy that they still need to swab the chair, but logic should've prevailed. There's generally a rational explanation. Ask mom if she's been somewhere where you can pick up fertilizer and still say, 'because your chair tested positive we just need to look through your bag - it's standard procedure'. That's fair. Acting like an azzhole is not.

My drug dog, though, sat on the residual scent of marijuana (the one I said was probably a pothead!) on the lift for a trunk lid. In other words, the guy had smoked a joint and then opened his trunk. I called OSI and we searched the car. The idiot had cleaned the car spotless - except for all the dried up leaf beneath the front floor mat. Instant court-martial. Awesome moment as a rookie handler! In another situation, the same dog and I went in to a dorm room after the occupant had been busted coming onto the installation. Max went nuts in the room and I could tell SOMETHING was there, but he never definitively planted his butt (typically this dog would sit and then stare at wherever the training aid or actual drug was - he practically stuck his nose on the trunk lift when we had the alert in the parking lot). I told OSI something was there, but he was unable to pinpoint it. Two dog teams showed the same action - the dogs had their heads up in the air and were catching air currents, but they couldn't pinpoint the exact location. Drove them nuts.

By the same token we did a search of a house on base - this guy was a piece of work. His wife called up saying he'd threatened her - lots more detail than what I'm going to go into here, but we had probable cause to search the house. OSI met me there and we opened the garage door. The explosives dog - a different dog than the one I talked about above - walked into the garage with his head straight up in the air and I watched him follow the scent. He sat in a corner and stared at the wall. Then when the wind shifted and we re-ran the search, he sat in another corner. I told OSI I thought the garage was probably loaded with stuff hidden in various locations. They found enough stolen explosives to do serious bodily harm hidden in several spots in the garage - this guy was a crackpot. He had all the stuff to make a bomb. The air currents swirling in the garage caused the scent to focus in various locations, and I could see the dog trying to sort it all out. Fascinating stuff. But it was a good sit, as we'd say - I trusted the dog and the dog was correctly handled to the point HE TRUSTED HIMSELF, which makes the difference in a handler-led response and a correct, dog-led response.

I'm sorry I'm overloading information here and I'm not trying to hijack this thread. I sort of miss the dogs and that job at times! Not trying to be the annoying storyteller, I swear.

I'll add that the funniest post I ever read on FT was about Mongrel Inclusion - where the dogs ask the 20 questions and the BDOs sniff the passengers. I LOLd so hard I had tears in my eyes. Still cracks me up. What's scary is that they'd probably get more cooperation than the BDOs - and infinitely more intel.