Grubb

No matter how you look at it, passive is still best, it is a lot more safer on all accounts. LoL – civilians got to love them, I love it when they tell you how it should be done – lol, but yes if you have a force procedure manual in place, then it should state that the dog is a primary indication only, and if the “STUFF” is not visible still, impound the vehicle or container or get a second dog – caution is never thrown over board.

There are a lot of substances out their shoe polish/ Varnish / thinners/ Coffee etc. even medicines (codine in flew medicine) that the drug dog will react positive to as well, and only inexperience K9 handlers will get in to a fix if not trained to be aware of this, well how other wise can you explain it, we have never been asked to show and tell the dogs behaviour here, all finds are double checked before we manually go and demolish.

What happened to profiling the suspect etc, well here I go and yadda – but yes Grub stick with passive, it’s just as hot as aggressive, and the dog points by the way, he sticks his nose in the place where he gets the strongest scent, so just keep pealing away the layers ( if possible) and he will be on the money – but you have to be able to read the dog? Now don’t you and a fresh dog from x with two weeks training to adapt with the handler lol, forget it.

Dogs I train do NOT hit on shoe polish, solvents, paint thinners or what have you. They respond only to the odors they've been conditioned to respond to. How do we know this?? We test it, proof it, train with it and document it. My original comments however still prevail as far as passive v. aggressive. six of one half dozen of the other. I teach aggressive in the drug dogs only because I'm old, I prefer it and I'm in charge.

DFrost

John Patrick wrote: Q - "So it is possible that if you were taking your dog around a vehicle doing a drug sniff, and you told your dog to sit, he would sit wouldnt he"
A - "I wouldnt tell him to sit..."
Q - "but if you did, would he sit"
A - "yes, but...
Q - etc...

When I had an aggressive alert dog, I never taught the dog to scratch for anything but trained odor. I couldnt tell him to scratch and didnt have a command to make him scratch.

LC: You don't need a command to make a dog scratch. We recognize it as a handler error or fault but if you stand in one place and keep saying, "Is it there? Is it there?" over and over again, the best trained dog will go to his trained alert.

LC: And so the defense attorney who, with a passive alert dog ask "Wouldn't your dog sit if you gave him a command?" Now just has to change the question slightly. "Wouldn't your dog give his trained alert if you asked him over and over, 'Is it there?' " Having an active alert doesn't exempt you from unscrupulous attorneys (isn't that redundant?).

Geel writes that if the stuff isnt visible impound it or get a second dog.I agree impound it but why get a second dog. If the dog indicates, thats your indication. What if for some reason the second dog didnt indicate. What are you going to do then?

The best defense against such allegations, ie. cueing the dog, is a complete documented record of training and utilization. The defense can, and in my experiance most often do, say anything they want to cast dispersion. WE simply have to tell the truth. As far as drugs not being visible, you mean you don't carry tools to disassemble a vehicle? We've done many right on the side of the road. A 1/4 inch drill bit is all that is required for a scope to fit somewhere. I totally agree with NOT calling a second dog. If a handler doesn't have enough faith in his dog and needs to call for a second opinion, that dog shouldn't be on the road.

DFrost

David

I take your point and i stand corrected, after reflecting on what you said, it's not worth splitting hairs over.