Originally Posted by
Section 107
You can, but that case is extremely weak.
Have you ever walked into a room, smelled poopcorn and searched around for it because you wanted some but couldn't find the popcorn?
Did you fail to find the popcorn because it never existed? Would you say your failure to find it means your olfactory system is useless? Would you say you failed to find it because your eyes and nose were looking for the wrong things?
No, of course not.
For exactly the same reasons one cannot say the dogs and the machines are not working correctly.
Yes, but the dogs are different.
While this is true, the only thing that can be used as probable cause for search is a proper and uncued alert of the dog. My dog once walked into a garage in base housing and walked around for the better part of ten minutes trying like hell to pinpoint where the smell was coming from - think about the possible air currents flowing through a garage and how the dog might experience them. We were all praying he'd sit. He did - and we found coils of det cord, blasting caps, and powder the guy had been lifting from his job for years. Had he never sat, we could've appealed to JAG for a warrant based on his training record and my testimony/kennel master's testimony as to the dog's reliability, but you may or may not get the warrant based on that.
How do I test if the dog was potentially cued, should such a scenario hypothetically go to court?
A smart lawyer would set up a training problem and have the team show their stuff. It's so obvious when a dog is cued it's insane.