I recently heard from a collegue that according to an acquintance of his, an import duties officer, narcotics dogs are hard to find in the Netherlands (we get ours from the Netherlands, too) because the police(and so forth)in the US also purchase a lot of these dogs from the Netherlands.
Now, let me say beforehand that I know nothing about narcotics training, but I was surprised to hear this because of the quantity and quality of the trainers in the US that specialize in narcotics training.
Is this true? If so what could be the reasons? Increase in demand? Shortage of dogs that meet the requirements to be trained as narcotics dogs?

Two words:
Homeland Security.


They have snatched up an incredible amount of green and trained dogs in the past few years.

We went from 2 EDD's to 11. Drugs, bombs, basically you look for the same type dog.

DFrost

I conclude the comment of my collegue was based on the truth then (he likes to joke around, esp. with me). Thx for the answers, gentlemen .

I live in Malinois country (Belgium) I don't have troubles finding good dogs but even here police and army are finding it more and difficult to buy decent dogs for a fair price due to the demande from overseas

Greetings

Johan

I didn't know D-HS had a big dog operation. I've seen a few officers, but no K-9 officers. I'm glad to hear that they're working with dogs. I guess they sort of have to. I'd love to work for DHS, though the pay and my physical condition are both prohibitive

 Quote: David Eagle

I didn't know D-HS had a big dog operation. I've seen a few officers, but no K-9 officers. I'm glad to hear that they're working with dogs. I guess they sort of have to. I'd love to work for DHS, though the pay and my physical condition are both prohibitive

I don't think DHS has dogs. What they do have is a sizeable purse from which to make grants.

DFrost

oh, I see. "Homeland Security", not "DHS". Makes sense

Many of the dogs imported into the US come in via way of the Neatherlands. Several large dog brokers exist there and they scoar Europe for dogs for resale to not only the US but also to many other countries.

The demand is great for dogs for drug work bomb work and patrol work. It is becoming considerably more difficult to find such dogs that are healthy, well socialized, and prepaired to move into such training.

My suggestion to those of you participating in the protection sports is to rear puppies to pay for your sport. Among sport enthusiasts there is the expertise and interest in working animals and those of us who seek out dogs from abroad would really like to see dogs reared here for sale at 12-18 months of age which are of the genetic quality and having been properly reared w/ an emphasis on prey and hunt behaviors being developed.

Maybe if we can encourage people to use this approach to both paying for their hobby and supporting law enforcement and the working dog we can see a greater number of dogs available here in the US.

Fascinating post, Kevin. Assuming someone had raised a dog to that point, had the kind of dog that could really work, what would they do with the animal? How would they get in touch with the right parties?