Part of the way down in the article, there is a summary of some of the problems that TSA is having with their

http://www.nbcnews.com/travel/tsa-dog-bites-passenger-atlantas-hartsfield-jackson-airport-1C9904739?lite=&lite=obnetwork

TSA strikes again, this time very close to our cause. Will they ever get their stuff together?

“TSA is working with Atlanta P.D. to investigate the alleged incident with the canine,” TSA spokesman David Castelveter told NBC News in a statement.

The word alleged makes me angry. This woman was assaulted by a working canine and she's having to live with the fear of rabies because no one's telling her anything. It's f'in disgusting. Heads need to roll.

Whoa - is TSA ever being stupid about this. Dog bites a person and they don't take it seriously? And I'd bet the dog has been throwing signals for a while that it wasn't suited for the work and the handler either ignored or didn't pick up on it.

But a couple other things made me go "huh"? First, why is it assumed the dog is still on duty (could bem but it didnt' seem the the article had any proof of that) and the rabies fear seams a bit over the top. The dog doesn't have rabies.

Regardless of that though, the woman should have NEVER gotten bit. Period. And somebody needs to take responsibility/be held accountable.

How do you know the dog doesn't have rabies? Because it should be vaccinated? Just like it should have been trained well enough to not attack an innocent bystander? Just like the handler should have stopped and helped the woman? Where's the proof since it appears that this woman doesn't even have that much. And since when did the vaccine prevent rabies 100%? If it did there wouldn't be any need for quarantining an animal after a bite with proof of vax.

If a dog bit me and the handler hurried off and the governing body the dog belongs to refuses to have contact with me I'd be absolutely terrified of rabies. If the idiots are incapable of doing the right thing after the bite, who's to say we should trust them to do the right thing BEFORE the bite?

To begin with, I have some concern about the suitability of the dog. According to the article, the intended purpose of the PSC teams is passenger screening. I just don't get how this dog had progressed through an evaluation and training program for working with people if it is not stable around people. A dog that is going to be screening humans in less-than-favorable conditions would have to be rock solid.

They should give some consideration to using social single purpose dogs(labs, spaniels, terriers, beagles, social GSD etc.) or muzzling the dual purpose dogs.

I've known some good patrol dogs that couldn't do that job but have no doubt that a bureaucratic machine like the TSA would use them anyway and just blame the handler if something went wrong.


Edit: I just read the report that was linked to. The dogs appear to all be single purpose. A dog that bites without provocation and without being trained to bite should be DONE with working anywhere near the public. Switch it to sniffing cargo or get rid of it.

Also interesting was that some of the teams are civilians with no authority to even detain someone. These teams were consistently the most problematic throughout the report.

Question:

Are canine handlers in the military/law enforcement all "dog people" or are people assigned to the role and trained? If they are trained, are they trained in simply controlling the dog, or are they trained to learn about dogs in general, along with training, dog psychology, body language, etc?

Can a law enforcement agency simply buy trained dogs and put them to work? How often does this occur, if it does?

They aren't all "dog people" but most are. Most of the handlers I knew may not have known dog behavior in a general sense very well but they were very tuned in to their individual dogs behavior.

I'll qualify my previous statement -

Can one be positive the dog doesn't have rabies? I guess not. But the laws of probability would strongly point toward that conclusion. There are no recorded cases of properly vaccinated dogs getting rabies. I think that may extend to dogs that have received an initial and booster vaccine. The vaccine is that highly effective. When my dog tangled with a sick raccoon he needed to get a rabies booster per state regulation. My vet told me at that time that there was no real reason for the regulation because the vaccine really was that effective.

If the dog came from a TSA breeding program, it received the initial and booster vaccine. If the dog came from a private kennel it received the same. They need the paperwork stating this to transport or certify the dog.

The risk of exposure is very low in an airport environment. And probability points to the fact that numerous people would have been exposed had the dog been exposed.

So, while it cannot be 100% positive, many different/unrelated people would have had to drop the ball at several different stages of the game that it becomes very highly unlikely that it would be an issue.

Quarantine is just another layer in the "what if" scenario. All the research and data available points to it not being needed if the animal in question has been vaccinated. It's like giving a dog in northern Canada HW preventive in the off chance a HW positive mosquito had been transported up there and bit the dog at the right stage in larvae development so the dog contracted the disease.

It is a far more likely scenario that weak nerves, stress and improper training/handling caused this issue. It is a much bigger probability that a dog like that could seriously maim/kill a person with it's teeth than rabies.

I think the thing that bugs me is the fact that many people jump right to the rabies conclusion in many dog bite cases and the much more likely issues (behavioral, temperament, nerves, training) tend to be overlooked. The vast majority of dog bites do not come because the dog is sick.

I am much more concerned about the fact that such a dog was and possibly still is working in close proximity to thousands of people. And that NO ONE has followed up with this lady about a serious situation. That is wrong on so many levels.

JMO.

IMHO, the rabies scare after a dog bite, though not typically rational, does provide a valuable cooling-off period. The practice dates back to pre-modern medicine, when rabies was a VERY legitimate concern.

In this case, it is reasonable to expect that the dog is certainly vaccinated, as it came through a (albeit lacking in other regards) certification program. In dogbite cases where strays dogs are involved, it would be reasonable to question whether the dog is vaccinated or not. In a case where the dog's owner is present but is a stranger to the victim, it is reasonable to quarantine the dog AND the victim until the owner proves the dog is up to date with ALL of its health concerns.

While rabies is the only thing that jumps to most people's minds after a bite incident, there are other risk factors. Most diseases that are transmittable to humans have been nearly eradicated through modern health care practices, but caution must still be exercised. Even the risk of post-bite bacterial infection must be considered, and by getting the wound examined asap, the victim can eliminate any issues that may be incubating.

The quarantining of the dog is also an essential cooling off period. The community as a whole is done a great service by apprehending (or removing from the owners) a dog that is attacking people. By using the blanket excuse of checking for rabies, animal and law enforcement have the power to seize the dog and determine if it is indeed a threat beyond the most recent incident.