Matthew Grubb Webboard User Reg: 09-27-2002
Posts: 637
Loc: Pittsburgh, Pa.
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What happens when you need to use your dog's alert as probable cause when he is trained to alert on a LEGAL substance...such as currency?
That's where the proofing comes in...... you're not training the dog to alert to money, just the odor on the money. It's no different than proiofing your dog off of plastic baggies or cloth that you may use for training. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Matthew Grubb Webboard User Reg: 09-27-2002
Posts: 637
Loc: Pittsburgh, Pa.
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OK , so your training your dog NOT to alert on currency. Right? Just on the drug odor? Using the currency to proof the dog.
Exactly.... In my drug box I have a few dollars saturated with drug odor. In order to make sure the dog is alerting to the drug odor and not the cash we have to proof the dog using uncirculated money that would be guaranteed free of any contact with drug odor.
Same thing with PVC tubes we often use for cadaver training. A poorly trained dog will drive you nuts hitting on plastic sewer lines. Latex gloves, same thing. I like to handle my scent tubes and other articles with metal tongs AND wearing the gloves.
Matthew Grubb Webboard User Reg: 09-27-2002
Posts: 637
Loc: Pittsburgh, Pa.
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SO why do you introduce the currency in the first place?
I want my dog to alert on currency containing odor. I don't want him to alert to currency that does not contain odor. When I am at a return of property hearing I need to be able to produce my training records showing that at X number of training sessions I placed 50 pieces of odored US currency inside a vehicle compartment and my dog alerted on it. I will also need to show that my dog has been proofed off of the US Currency as well. Our courts are not going to accept my using scented post-it notes to train my dog.
Richard.... It appears you have some point you want to make. Stop beating about the bush and make it. If you want to tell us that our detection training methods are faulty, please do so.....after all, you say you pioneered highway interdiction.
Ed Frawley Administrator Reg: 07-11-2001
Posts: 2112
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Matthew - you need to be careful in how you word your court testimony. You wrote "I want my dog to alert on currency containing odor" Thats not the right way to word what you want to say.
You should say "I want my dog to alert on the odor of narcotics and the fact that that odor happens to be on currancy has nothing to do with the indication".
I think thats the point that Richard may be making. This may sound like symantics - it's not. A point to mention here is that Richard Dixon has been a narcotics officer and drug dog handler for more years than I can remember. I would consider him an expert oon the subject and I am sure any court he testifies in also does.
Matt Hammond Webboard User Reg: 05-23-2004
Posts: 103
Loc: Georgia
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Matt,
The best way we found to train in Money or drug money is to get some uncirculated currency from the mint. They will shred it up and put it on a nice bag for you. Doing this you can build a testomony that your dog will only alert on contaminated money. a study was done a few years ago by the DEA and they found that over 60% of all 50s,100, and 1000 dollar bills in circulation have some sort of contamination on them. By using "clean" money you can take this factor out of our training and be sure that your dog will NOT alert on clean money only the drug money. You can all your DEA or the US mint or you can even go to Spencers in your local mall and get the "million dollar pillow" it is 1 million USD shredded. IT is all the misprinted money they shred.
But like Ed said if you mess up your testomony a good defence lawyer will eat your lunch on the stand and discredit you and your dog......
When people get scared they call the police..When the police get scared they call K-9!
Matt,
Actually I just wanted to see what the different opinions on the topic were out there. I known Kevin Sheldal in New Mexico (the one who began this topic)knows exactly what he is doing using currency in his training. But some handlers reading about training with currency don't. Some times a little info is worse than none at all. Personally I have never used currency of any kind in my training and have found millions of dollars still. I have also found that Mrs. Smith's poodle down the street will show interest in large amounts of currency, after all is there anything nastier than money, it buys hamburgers, dope, get used as toilet paper, its urinated on in drunks pockets, its sweated on and handled by more people than you can count.
Currency training can get you in trouble in the courtroom so be careful with it!
Enjoyed the topic. I'll go back to the wagon now. Oh and about pioneering, that just means we did it back in the old days and had some luck at it. Thanks Ed and Kevin.
Richard Dickson
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