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I was in a car with some folks that had recently smoked, and we happenned to be driving past a crime scene that had a half dozen cop cars. Traffic was of course moving very slowly as all the drivers gawked. As we were creeping along, we started hearing barking noises, and realized that there was a cop car with not one but two k9s inside, right next to the lane where we were driving.

As we got closer and closer to the k9s they started barking louder and louder, and we were shitting bricks rolling up windows. Luckily there weren't any cops near enough to notice, and we drove away clean.

But I was surprised as heck about how sensitive the k9s were... they started barking at us when we were still a couple of car lengths away, and that was through the closed windows in the k9 car. Even though the smoking was like 10 minutes ago and not in the car. By the time we were right next to the k9 car they were going crazy. It really makes it clear to me that hiding pot in a plastic bag is never going to protect it from a k9 search.

 

Viper420

A good dog will find your pot no matter how good you hide it.

BartSimpson

1. These dogs were not alerting on you - drug dogs are trained to passively alert. They sit down and wait for the handler to give them a treat, because it is a game of find the toy to the dog.

2. Dogs are trained with the raw product and not the burnt byproduct. The fact that you had recently smoked and smelled like burnt MJ had nothing to do with their reaction. They were likely responding to other stimulus.

3. Dogs smell in parts-per-billion - as in 4 or 5 parts-per-billion. To equate this to something you might relate to, consider this; a part-per-billion is 1 foot in 190 miles. It would be like you seeing a 5 foot man standing on the horizon, 190 miles away (we humans are such visual creatures that this is the best analogy I can come up with that relates).

4. Humans get olfactory fatigue, our sense of smell is overwhelmed by the strongest odor; dogs do not - they smell in layers. So where a human smells the coffee, the dog smells the coffee and the weed.

5. I'm guessing you never owned a dog.

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Andrew87

I wouldn't have worried about it. Most police k9s are very aggressive and will bark and yelp at pretty much anything that isn't their handler, including other cops.

Darque Pervert

On what do you base this assertation?
I have known canine officers and met their dogs. They are not aggressive unless they are ordered to be by their handler or if they feel their handler is being threatened.

Now guard dogs, on the other hand, are another story. They are trained to be aggressive toward anyone except their handler or whoever the handler designates as friendly, such as employees in a business or family and close friends, etc.

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troublemaker_42

I've actually been WARNED by a state trooper that his dog, a drug detection dog, was agressive and barked alot in the presence of strangers. He told me this before seating me in his vehicle, so as I wouldn't be alarmed if he acted up. Just because one might be agressive doesn't mean they all are, but the reverse is true as well. Dogs are like people, and have various temperments, regardless of what they "do".

However, Bart was right. Just because a dog barked at you doesn't mean it smelled the marijuana. Dogs bark....just becasue a K9 barks doesn't mean its "alerting" to anything

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Darque Pervert

Maybe the few canines I've encoutered were not trained to be aggressive.
Granted, it's been three dogs out of thousands that are in service. Maybe I just got a bad sample.

Jake

I think that most drug-dogs are the "little puppy" types, Darque. The type of job it is doesn't really require a super-hyper dog, but I think they prefer it. That dog can find the stuff and find it fast...

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Buzzby

This sounds like a poorly trained dog to me. That's not at all unusual, especially with drug detection dogs. Often these dogs are used as a limp excuse to search people's vehicles and don't know their jobs at all.

I got pulled over in Missouri. I was asked for permission to search my vehicle. As they had no reasonable suspicion that I was carrying any contraband, I refused. They elected to bring in a "drug dog". This dog proceeded to alert on the police car, a tree, a rock, and, finally, my truck. This, supposedly, formed a basis to search it!

I've been training dogs for 34 years. A properly trained service dog is not aggressive unless he's instructed to be so. In fact, uncontrolled aggression will disqualify a dog from a service dog training program.

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phuzz01

Oh boy, so many issues here:

1) Detection: Not all K9s are narcotics detection dogs. Some K9s are patrol dogs only, and some are detection dogs for other entities (such as explosives or decomposing flesh).

2) Alert: Some narcotics detection dogs are trained to actively alert (i.e. bark and scratch), some dogs are trained to passively alert (i.e. sit). My K9 is a passive alert dog, but we have some active alert dogs in the unit.

3) Burnt v. fresh marijuana: A narcotic detection dog could be imprinted with the odor of burnt marijuana, fresh marijuana, or both. In addition, a dog that is imprinted with the odor of fresh marijuana could still hit in an area that had been smoked in, as obviously fresh marijuana had recently been in that area and leaves residual odor.

4) Cruiser aggression: Some K9s are cruiser aggressive, and some are not. Dogs, like people, have different personalities. Since they spend a LOT of time in the back of a cruiser, and nobody else is back there, they naturally consider it to be their territory. Someone advancing on them in the back of the cruiser could easily initiate defense drive which would be in the form of barking, growling and scratching. Some handlers choose to encourage or train that behavior, while other handlers do not.

5) Normal aggression: Again, different K9s have different personalities. Some are more aggressive towards people, while others are more social with people. Neither makes a "better" or "worse" police dog, it is just something that the handler needs to know and account for.

6) Buzzby regarding alerts: While we may train active alert dogs to scratch, and while we may train passive alert dogs to sit, there are a huge number of dog-specific or dog-unique indicators beyond that primary alert. These range from changes in posture, to changes in breathing, changes in speed, "head snaps," and so on. Only the handler and the trainer really know when a particular dog is "in odor." So while you may have seen behavior in the Missouri K9 that led you to believe that the dog was indicating on a tree or a bush or whatever, since you haven't trained and worked with that specific dog, you really can't say what that dog's "alerts" are.

In general, I would advise people here not to say "K9s do this," or "drug dogs do that." In my experience training and handling police K9s, the one thing that I learn over and over is that every dog is different, every dog responds to different training methods, and every handler has a unique relationship with his dog which allows him to see and read things in his dog that other people cannot. Blanket statements regarding police K9s are more than likely going to be false.