Homegrown Dogs Fight Homegrown Bombs

As Prices Skyrocket For Bomb-Sniffing Dogs, LAPD Decides To Raise Its Own

(CBS)  You see them everywhere in America: sniffing out bombs, drugs and bad guys.

Problem is, ever since that fateful day five years ago, there haven't been enough security dogs to meet demand.

"The use of dogs in general has increased drastically since 9/11," says Dennis O'Connor of the Federal Protective Service, a Department of Homeland Security agency that guards federal sites. O'Connor says the increase can be seen at all levels: federal, state, local and even in the private contract world.

Patrick Beltz, who imports and trains bomb-detecting dogs, says that in the old days, he'd train a dozen dogs a year. But, he says, "since 9/11 we're averaging anywhere from 40 to 80 explosive detection teams a year," he says.

And getting the dogs has become an international battle — with prices at the top European kennels, where the best dogs have long been bred, approaching $8,000 an animal.

"When I go to Europe, I've seen Saudis buying dogs there, I've seen Israelis buying dogs there, Chinese military, Malaysian police, it's a bidding war," says Beltz.

That's stiff competition for U.S. police departments, which also import foreign dogs for their canine units.

To get around the bidding wars — and help create a steady supply — the Los Angeles Police Department has decided to grow its own canine corps, becoming the first major police department in this country to breed its own dogs.

From a litter of eight, chief trainer Sgt. Doug Roller picked four puppies with potential to join his 22-dog canine patrol.

"Quite frankly, I've got these dogs doing things that some of my 12-, 13-month-old dogs aren't doing and they're only six months old," says Roller, who is the LA Police Department's chief trainer.

For now it's largely basic training, designed to encourage each dog's natural instincts.

Obedience and discipline come later.

And the program won't totally replace the need for foreign bred dogs, but if all goes well, a young trainee named Ozzy may take the place of 7-year-veteran Rudy — who's been involved in 400 searches and captured 200 suspects.

"We have a lot of dogs that are on the fringe of retirement — if all works out with these dogs, it will be a natural transition from the dogs that are retiring to the new younger dogs coming into the action," says Roller.

Still it's a test — for the dogs and the trainers trying to meet security demands in the post 9-11 world.

[alphaa10-2009]

On August 16, 2006, federal authorities used bomb-sniffing dogs at the Seattle seaport with containers from Pakistan supposed to contain oily rags. The dogs "went off" and radiation monitors detected "anomalies", but it was all for nothing, apparently. Whatever the dogs smelled, authorities said no explosives were found.

We have no realistic federal funding to protect the nation's seaports with detection, surveillance and fencing, and we get false positives from one of the nation's few "showcase" port security projects.

At this point, I am not sure which is more worrisome-- an expensive system which doesn't work reliably, or the lack of even basic security for the majority of ports. Congress and Bush are betting no one cares, so long as they can beat the drums for Iraq.

[backwardsfli]

Auburn Unvieristy (AU) - Canine Detection Training Center(CDTC)is probably one of the leading organizations in the US conducting research, training, and breeding, for Detector Dogs. The CDTC breeding program is one of three U. S. cooperative satellites of the highly successful Australian Customs Service Detector Dog Breeding Program.

[alphaa10-2009]

Go Auburn! But why can't the dogs who graduate (from the canine program) make any headway on the job?

[himeko-2009]

Please tell me how I can donate my dog to become a police dog.

Doreen Mercado
[e-mail]