Bomb dogs at the airport.

[chas_martel]

This past Sunday I was picking my wife and kids up at Love Field in Dallas,
they were returning from a vist to Grandma's birthday. Earlier I had
been out on our land shooting. I was in shorts that had gun powder
on the front legs as I had sit an open revolver in my lap while working
on it. I had dark gunpowder stains down my front side. My
shooting shoes must for sure have gun powder residue on them. I
was also carrying a Glock 27 IWB that had been fired about 250 times
that morning. And I am sure I had gunpowder on my hands.

Anyway, I am standing there and here comes a K9 guy with a dog
sniffing bags and peoples legs. Dog gave me a quick sniff and
just walked on buy. For about 10 secs I freaked inside.

My question, can dogs distinquse gunpowder from explosives?
Are they trained to ignore gunpowder? I'd think so otherwise
they would be hitting on all the cops, right?

Anyone know anything about this?

 

[ball3006]

It may have been a drug sniffing dog......

I don't believe they train them to do both drugs and bombs.....chris3

 

[rab357]

I read once...

that dogs are really only good for about 1 hours consecutive worth of sniffing work and after that they need a rest or they are not as reliable.

 

[Firethorn]

What ball3006 said. Dogs are trained one or the other, not both. I've also heard that burned smokeless residue doesn't set them off. The fresh stuff might.

 

[Chipperman]

One of my clients is a company that does security/sniffing dogs. Every so often, they bring one of the dogs in to be seen for vaccines, or a problem of some sort.

"Jabbers" is a bloodhound that has been trained to sniff out bombs and gun powder, and is employed by the IRS building down the street from my clinic. I have seen and handled that dog many times, and am always packing.

The dog never bats an eye at me. I'm curious whether the dog is ignoring me because he's not "working" at the time, or if my gun and ammo for some reason do not trigger him. I've thought about asking his handler, but concealed means concealed, right?

 

[dfaugh]

Hate to say it...

but that dog shoulda alerted BIGTIME. I've trained Schutzhund Sport for several years, and trained with lots of trainers who also train/own drug and explosive dogs.

One I know has brought by 2 of his dogs (he has a private company, that's hired by schools and such that have him come in with the dogs), and gave us a demonstration.

He hid a variety of drugs all over my property, in vehicles, in my pocket, and in my barn, and his (clean) handgun inside the engine compartment of my lawn tractor. The dog found 5 "stashes" of drugs, plus the gun in less than 2 minutes.

 

[ArmedBear]

Did the dog "fetch", dfaugh?

One o' them dawgs might be a way to make a few bucks...

 

[Double Maduro]

He hid a variety of drugs all over my property, in vehicles, in my pocket, and in my barn, and his (clean) handgun inside the engine compartment of my lawn tractor. The dog found 5 "stashes" of drugs, plus the gun in less than 2 minutes.

Or he could have been alerting to the smell of his trainer. The handler/trainer should not be the one who hides the test samples.

I have been at the airport, yes I was carrying, when they came around with a bomb smelling dog. Dog never even blinked an eye. I said, "nice dog", to the handler, he said thanks and kept going.

DM

 

[Princecookie]

Bomb dog?

Could the dog have been trained to sniff out illegal produce, you know, fruit, veg., etc. It may not have been trained or explosives.

 

[distra]

The dog may not have alerted to your gun powder residue, but I'll bet the Mass Spec they use in swipe tests would. I worry about having residue on my hands and transfering a little to my brief case and getting "choosen" for the swipe test. My guess is the Mass Spec would easily discover the residue.

 

[Rovi]

According to the very nice people we spoke to at a Scottish ferryport a few months ago, they also have dogs for sniffing out cash.
In large quantities, of course, so we were perfectly safe

 

[Standing Wolf]

Maybe it was a doughnut-sniffing dog.

 

[seeker_two]

Bomb dogs at the airport.

Oh, you mean bomb-sniffing dogs....

I thought you were being cruel....

 

[oops!]

Until the last 2 years I have been a specialty blaster, licensed in over 15 states.

I have travelled by commercial air carriers many times, hundreds in fact, with all my gear and clothing. I mean boots, gloves, hardhat, coveralls notebooks, Corp of engineers "Field demolitions manual" etc.

Not once did I or my gear get flagged by either the swipe tests or the dogs, EVER!

I have handled, counted and returned 700 lbs. of gel explosive, 12 rolls of 50 grain detcord, 500 delay caps and 300 instant caps with my own hands. I was in both the portable magazine and the delivery truck. Within 45 minutes I was detained by the TSA.

I was not delayed because of my contaminated gear or clothing. I was detained because I had a delivery/ pickup invoice from an explosives vendor in my briefcase. I watched the TSA swab my boots and gloves and put the pads thru their machine, NADA! NOT ONE PEEP FROM THAT HIGH TECH SNIFFER!

 

[acdodd]

"The dog may not have alerted to your gun powder residue, but I'll bet the Mass Spec they use in swipe tests would. I worry about having residue on my hands and transfering a little to my brief case and getting "choosen" for the swipe test. My guess is the Mass Spec would easily discover the residue."

I have been trained on the ETD machines. They don't detect gun powder.
But don't tell anyone.

 

[444]

Edit

Ok, maybe I shouldn't post that.

Bomb dogs can/will alert on unburnt black powder.

 

[distra]

oops! & acdodd, Interesting and little disconcerning In college we did the mass spec experiment with nitroglycerin residue (tiny amount from nitro spray) and gun powder. The mass spec ID'ed these compounds within a few seconds. Maybe the TSA just bought empty boxes with CRT's mounted on top. It would be interesting to run QA/QC on these machine just to see *what* they would identify. Certainly does not bust my confindence in airport/airline safety.

 

[akodo]

It seems to me a bomb dog that reacts to burnt gunpowder or to firearm smells in general would be kinda useless, because said dog is going to be around and among armed security guards, police officers, air marshals, etc. the dog woudl be CONSTANTLY allerting whenever an officer that wasn't his handler walked by.


Redarding 'maybe the dog was for fruit, etc' In the USA, the FDA/USDA uses beagles almost exclusively for that kind of job.

 

[Crosshair]

A few weeks after Sept. 11 one of my Co-Workers was flying to visit family. He is Malaysian and wears a headscarf. Turns out that his shampoo set off the explosives detector. He said that it was very interesting for awhile.

 

[dfaugh]

It seems to me a bomb dog that reacts to burnt gunpowder or to firearm smells in general would be kinda useless, because said dog is going to be around and among armed security guards, police officers, air marshals, etc. the dog woudl be CONSTANTLY allerting whenever an officer that wasn't his handler walked by.

Actually, they are "directed" to search an area, object whatever on command. in fact this may be why the dog didn't alert on you, now that I think about it. If he wasn't "working" he may have just been strolling and randomly sniffing.... If you see one actually working they're almost in a frenzy to find something, knowing they'll get rewarded if they do, as that's the basis for the training.

 

[El Tejon]

I have been advised by federal agents and people who work with federal agencies in several different agencies that the "bomb-sniffing dogs" seen at airports are almost always used for drugs.

More money in drugs than in terrorism and there were more drug dogs available. I do not know if such was the case of the Dallas dog.

 

[Bob F.]

Yrs ago I watched a Rottie from a state prison search a high school for drugs. Dog alerted on a locker and a search commenced. Deputy found a pot metal derringer that only fired caps. (Y'all remember cap guns?)

Same day they took the dogs to 4-H camp for demo. LEO planted a small bag of pot and cleared the kids out of the cabin/dorm. The little GSD bitch alerted on the wrong place and the handler had to drag her out of there. Guess they didn't want any political problems in the small rural county.

The same GSD put on and inpressive tracking and prisoner-guard demo a short time later.

Stay safe.
Bob

 

[Freddymac]

My theory is that the dog is accustomed to that powder type.

Most of the handlers carry, right? They are either police or military, right? I think that the dogs get used to smelling that type of powder and just gets used to it or just associates it with the handler. Keep in mind that a dogs nose is so complex that they dont smell gun powder. They smell the components. My aunt owned a kennal when I was younger. She had adopted a bomb dog that was retired and was going to be put down. She aggreed to take care of it so the security company let her have the dog. When we would go shooting, he never made a sound, light off some firecrackers... and he would go nutz.

Just my theory.

-fred