This is my first post on this board. I am a handler in a town of 5,500 people. We have a hippie problem here. They have bought a 330 acre campground and have music festavles about 12-20 times a year. We have a huge influx in traffic coming threw our town. We work the highways very hard year round but due to the number of people our stops and drug arrests are threw the roof.
This is my question: Have any of you had your dog hit on Hemp Rope? The kind that is used to make jewlery. My dog that I just retired had hit on it a few times this past summer. I was just passing it off as contact odor from the hippies that had handled weed and then the rope.
I have never just had an alert where I just found the rope. Other narcotics were always found in the vehicle. One time sticks out in my mind: Iran hit on a plastic tub inside of a van. I started to reward him but he had found a large ball of hemp rope and decided to reward himself. I got the rope back and gave it back to the hippie. I searched the box and all that was in there was the rope. Of course I found a good amount of marijuana in another part of the van.
I was just wondering if anyone else has seen this?

Thanks,

Mark A. Wynn
http://www.salempolicek9.com

I don't have experience with trained detection dogs, but I used to work at a jewelry store that used hemp for stringing. If I brought some home to work on, I had to keep it away from both my dogs and my cats. Don't know what it is about it, but dogs go absolutely nuts for it. Cats act like it's catnip. Maybe it carries a similar scent to marijuana, since it is a derivative, and that's what he's picking up.

Board members who answer these kind of questions need to be law enforcement or retired drug dog handlers. Others only offer OPINIONS and OPINIONS need to be based on EXPERIENCE.

Take your hemp rope and put it out in training to see if your dog indicvates on it. Then you know.

Thanks for the quick reply. Ed my only problem is that I don't know where to get Hemp that would be totaly sent free of any other narcotic odor. I may try and find some online. My experence has been that if your making the jewlery your probably smokeing a "J". <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I'll see what I can come up with. Thanks again.

Mark A. Wynn
http://www.salempolicek9.com

Mark, hemp can be bought at any craft store. If you're concerned about it being contaminated, buy some that's wrapped in cellophane. By the way, I've never smoked a joint in my life.

Answer that question the same way you would answer the questions of: Does my dog respond to plastic bags, tennis balls, human odor etc, etc, etc. You test it, take corrective action if necessary, document it and let the record do the talking for you.

DFrost

I have to agree with David, it is the same as any other conflict odor. Train off of it and document.

....just curious,what about these new collars and leashes that seem to be so popular,that are supposed to be made of hemp? i hear that they are supposed to be 'really soft',but to my thinking,why use something that unattractive for your dog,at such a cost? they aren't pretty,and leather is much nicer for your hands,so i don't get it....