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This dog is not your drug dealer’s best friend.
Monday, May 3, 2010 | 12:05 a.m.
These are not dogs you teach to roll over, or cuddle. These dogs — this particular group of eight — only respond to commands in German. These dogs have 400 hours of training, each. They're German shepherds, or Belgian malinois. They're land sharks. And when they smell meth, or heroin, or marijuana — when they "hit" on some microparticle of some illicit drug stashed in a car on some Nevada highway — it's blood in the water.
The Nevada Department of Public Safety started with six dogs in late 2008. In their first 16 months, those dogs sniffed out more than 2,000 pounds of various narcotics and $4 million in U.S. currency — the sales and spoils of drug runners who use Nevada as a Western distribution hub, said J.V. Gagnon, a DPS chief.
Roughly 30 pounds of that seizure was meth, with a wholesale value of over half a million dollars, Gagnon says. The money seized is used to fund the K-9 program — to outfit highway patrol cars for animals, to buy kennels and equipment, to pay an experienced trainer, to travel in search of the right dogs. Dogs with the right "prey drive."
And the right dog isn't cheap. They're purchased with donations from a nonprofit, Nevada State Friends for K-9. After hours of training, Gagnon estimates each dog is worth around $40,000.
Which sounds like a lot, until you consider that one dog found drugs and cash worth almost $100,000 on his first week on the job. Another dog, meanwhile, found drugs and cash worth $1.6 million in one night — enough to float the entire K-9 program.
"They work to hunt, and they love to hunt dope," Gagnon says. "It doesn't matter what people do to the drugs, the dogs will smell it. The scent always leaks out."
The dogs smell places where drugs have been even after they're gone, Gagnon says. It's reported that canines can detect scent molecules in parts-per-billion. Dogs are now used to smell out contraband cell phones in prison, and bedbugs in hotels. Studies show that dogs can detect certain cancers. And still other dogs have been trained to sniff out DVDs — an effort to stop movie piracy.
In Nevada, each K-9 officer takes his dog home. They spend their weekends together. They train, groom and feed the dogs constantly, Gagnon says. And no expenses are spared. (The dogs are trained with German commands in part because it's industry practice, dating back to a time when most law-enforcement dogs were imported from Germany.)
The dogs, meanwhile, just want to sniff and hunt. Even fetch is high-stakes. When Gagnon throws a tennis ball for one dog, it locks on the toy like missile defense, then bolts in full gallop, back in seconds and waiting for the next throw. Now the dog is activated, so Gagnon issues a training challenge: He sits the tennis ball at the dog's paws, and makes him wait, staring at the ball, but not touching. Every molecule of the dog's body, now, is fixed on the ball. So Gagnon waits. Waits. Waits. Then bam! A command in German and the dog is off, back again, and ready for the next throw.
— Originally published in Las Vegas Weekly
"Which sounds like a lot, until you consider that one dog found drugs and cash worth almost $100,000 on his first week on the job. Another dog, meanwhile, found drugs and cash worth $1.6 million in one night -- enough to float the entire K-9 program.
"They work to hunt, and they love to hunt dope," Gagnon says. "It doesn't matter what people do to the drugs, the dogs will smell it. The scent always leaks out."
Thanx Sun for providing the proof government is a predator, actively on the hunt for REVENUE. And without a moment's concern over their oaths to support and defend Section 18 and the Fourth Amendment.
"Fear is the foundation of most governments." - John Adams, 1776 "Thoughts on Government"
Excellent point, KillerB!
There's always enough money for a police state!!!! How ironic that they take commands in German. Papers Please!!!
"Another dog, meanwhile, found drugs and cash worth $1.6 million in one night -- enough to float the entire K-9 program."
What's wrong with this sentence?
Seized drugs are worth nothing. In fact they cost money to store and eventually destroy. Unless the Department intends to sell them at auction along with seized cars and other assets?
Just about the time I think the posters here can't possibly be any dumber, they come up with more proof that the bottom of the gene pool is quite full of sludge... yeesh ...
But I do agree that confiscated drugs won't return a profit to the government and it's a very poor choice of words by the reporter and/or officers. However, this is enforcement of a law... enforcement of laws rarely turn a profit for anyone.... and it is not intended to turn a profit. If you don't like the law, then speak to your law-makers or run for elected office as a law-maker.
The dog's commands are in German because you don't want some errant word in the English language to reach the dog's ears... and they are special words in German ... not words you would expect.
And for the rest of the previous not-so-well-thought-out comments. You all show that you lack even the smallest amount of critical thinking skills. Not that it does me (or anyone else) any good by point that out.
Now .. lets see how many personal attacks I draw becuae of my comments .... that will just be more proof of lack of thinking skills.
they totally sell them. no of this makes sense unless we live in a police state.
oops.. typo in that last (typing too fast).. oh well, someone will attack me for it... after all, it's a police state here, right ?
Hund Sitzen!!!!!
"And still other dogs have been trained to sniff out DVDs..."
Test_Guy -- sort of blows your argument for legitimacy.
Your "previous not-so-well-thought-out comments" doesn't exactly endorse you as thinking your opinion all the way through, either. Pot to kettle to black.
DVDs??!! That's just too much of a stretch to be included in any "reasonable search." It's more like a tool for what the high courts used to call blatant police overreaching -- "fishing expeditions."
So.. Mr. KillerB ... lots of child porn is stamped onto DVDs and distributed via US Mail ... the way I read your response is that you are all for letting these kinds of DVDs circulate. Also lots of pirate DVDs moving around the USA ... just why and how is it over-reaching to train dogs to sniff out DVDs that pass through the US mail or other common carrier system? Maybe you need to actually look up the definition of "critical thought" ...
And since you seem to be an attorney, or at least seem to be educated in the ways of the law, ("for what the high courts used to call blatant police overreaching") maybe you can be so good as to quote us some good case law where a dog finding pirate DVDs what found to be unconstitutional.
oops more typos.. gotta slow down my typing speed ;-) Sorry... that last "what" should be "was" ...
Hopefully NHP can make this dog program work this time. Last time they had dogs in Reno it turned into a fiasco. Officers assigned the dogs had an entitlement mentality that ruined the program. "Whaddya mean you won't pay me overtime for feeding and exercising my dog??"
Oh and by the by Mr KillerB .... it does not take much of an imagination to think that boxes of pirate DVDs (and or child porn) could be / would be transported in a private truck that is rolling down the freeway... (not just in US mail)and the NHP, Metro, and other enforcement agencies have been directed, by law, to use legal means to stop that activity ... that means if you want to be left alone to transport drugs or DVDs, you had better drive safely, have no brake lights out, and not draw attention to yourself... if you break any traffic law, you can be subject to search...
Personally, I am never concerned if or when an office might stop my vehicle. I know that I have nothing to fear because I am not going to ever be participating in an illicit activity... and please, lets not hear all about how police will "plant" evidence on you... sheesh...
The bottom line here is that people are not free to produce pirate DVDs or child porn ... what part of "illegal activity" do you not understand? What part of "legal to have a dog take a few sniffs" do you not understand?
I am sorry, but you sure sound like you intend to support the position that it should be perfectly OK to participate in an illegal activity (pirate DVDs, Drugs, or whatever) and that the police should have no power at all to make a reasonable search.
Care to clarify?
um... nitro... your statement makes little sense (at least to me it does not).
Are you saying that you don't understand a dog will give a conditioned response to a specific smell? Or are you saying that you do not believe that the dog can give a proper response?
Obviously, these dogs are trained to react to particular smells. I suppose it could look like, for all practical purposes, a "robotic" reaction.... just as most people have a "robotic" reaction to the smell of coffee or popcorn... after lots of training, the dogs do what they have been taught to do... just a well-conditioned response to training (see Pavlov's Dog for reference).
Anyway, I'm done with this topic. The difference between smartness and studpidity is that smartness has its limits, and I'm at my limit for today.
I am still stuck on the "German" commands...Why not Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Nigerian, Sounds racist to me... The scary part that has been missed is it it a "national practice" I know its a "superior thing"
"So.. Mr. KillerB ... lots of child porn is stamped onto DVDs and distributed via US Mail ... the way I read your response is that you are all for letting these kinds of DVDs circulate."
Test_Guy -- your posts show you to be completely ignorant on the concept of privacy and limitations on law enforcement. You seem to suggest just because there might be "child porn" on a dvd that gives probable cause for a cop to search and seize your personal property on the slim possibility the content could be illegal. And all that assuming "child porn" is illegal.
Getting personal with me is not a good way to foster reasoned Discussions here, T_G. Mocking one for having an opposing opinion is no evidence of your "critical thought" process at work, only childishness.
"The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people." - Noam Chomsky