Paws on Patrol: How Ordinary Dogs Become Extraordinary Detectors

-Karthik Gurumurthy

So you want to know how they turn ordinary dogs into those amazing drug and bomb detectors you see at airports? It’s actually a pretty fascinating process!

Turns out you can’t fool these furry officers as easily as you might think. Even if you hide your stash in some weird corner of your car or wrap it in perfume-soaked clothes, a properly trained dog will still bust you. These smart pups can actually detect drugs even when the scent is 90% masked by other smells!

The training starts super simple – like teaching a dog to fetch. The handler tosses a bag about 10 feet away and rewards the dog when it brings it back. Then they level up by having the dog stay put while they hide the bag somewhere, forcing the pup to use its nose instead of its eyes. After about a month of this basic training, they start hiding the bag in luggage and packages.

The difficulty increases gradually – first choosing between just two items, then more options, then hiding stuff in cars or buildings. They only make it harder when the dog keeps succeeding.

Around the two-month mark, it gets really interesting. They start disguising the marijuana smell with perfume, formaldehyde, or other scents smugglers typically use. They slowly increase the ratio of the masking scent to the drug smell.

The Army and Air Force actually run specialized training schools for these detection dogs. They mainly use German shepherds and Labradors because these breeds have great noses and love to retrieve things repeatedly without getting bored. For bomb detection, they train the dogs to sit or lie down when they find something – because obviously you don’t want a dog trying to dig up explosives!

The whole initial training for marijuana detection takes about 10 weeks. They use about a half kilo of marijuana, a harness, and a 25-foot line.

Fun fact: early attempts to train dogs to find heroin went horribly wrong – the dogs actually got addicted from sniffing it and eventually died! They’ve since figured out how to break heroin into components and create training materials with the scent but without the addictive properties.

They also learned the hard way not to use gauze around marijuana for training – the Army once discovered they were accidentally training dogs to find bandages rather than drugs!

The whole process works best with dogs that naturally enjoy retrieving things – just like training a dog to fetch a stick, but with much higher stakes!