Are Bomb Sniffing Dogs The Answer for The TSA?

[MineralMan]

Right now, the FAA's goal is to have a total of 800 explosive-sniffing dogs at the 80 busiest airports. The cost to train one of these dogs and its handler is $15,000. The TSA also employs dogs and their handlers.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130545&page=2

MSP, my home-town airport has 6 of these dogs, which do various jobs, mostly sniffing baggage. They can only work limited hours. In one case, a terminal was evacuated and delays were caused by a false alarm from one of the six dogs.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/01/06/last-bag-msp/

In Philadelphia, three of these dogs failed their recertification tests and had to be retrained.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/pawprintpost/post/2010/01/bomb-sniffing-dogs-need-to-get-up-to-speed-to-protect-travel-hubs/1

All TSA bomb sniffing dogs are trained at a single facility at Lackland AFB. The number of dogs that can be trained at that facility is limited.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130545&page=1

Bomb sniffing dogs in Iraq were found to be poorly-trained and ineffective by the State Department's inspector general. These dogs are trained and supplied by private contractors.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/10/08/bomb_sniffing_dogs


Roughly 1.5 million passengers pass through security screening each day on domestic flights in the USA. How many of these dogs would be required to sniff all of those passengers? Keep in mind that the dogs can only work a limited number of hours, so multiple shifts would be required. They also sniff out false alarms. What happens then? Is the screening area shut down? Who would train all these dogs? The current training center at Lackland AFB has a limited capacity, and private contractors, as shown above, are not necessarily producing well-trained animals.

Who would breed all of these dogs? Only some breeds are particularly good at this job. Will factory-style breeding centers be set up to produce the large number of dogs that would be needed? Each dog must also be trained with a specific handler. Where will these handlers be found, and where will this training take place?

It seems to me that such dogs are not a realistic solution for discovering explosives that might be carried by passengers. The sheer number of passengers, along, would appear to make such a thing impractical in the extreme. Add to that the limited working hours of these dogs and the false alarms possible, and it doesn't appear that dogs are the future of security screening.

[HopeHoops]

1. I got goosed by a golden retriever in Canada ten years ago.

I thought it was sort of funny when I realized it was just a dog sniffing my butt, but it shocked the shit out of me when it happened.

[MineralMan]

3. I have a friend with a golden. It specializes in butt-sniffing.

It's an expert. Nice dog, though. Happy all the time.

[HopeHoops]

12. All it needed was a sound effect.

[panader0]

2. I can see the outrage now.....

A dog sniffed and slobbered on my junk and then humped my leg!

[MineralMan]

4. Well, I'm not even addressing the issue of people who are

afraid of dogs. My only question in this OP is numbers and accuracy. I'm sure many people would be alarmed at a dog sniffing them like they do. Not everyone is a dog-lover.

[Gormy Cuss]

5. Dogs are part of the solution but ultimately we need smart machines to do the primary screening.

Having humans review every image is just as taxing for them as it is for sniffer dogs to remain on alert for long periods of time, and in both instances that lead to failures to detect threats. There's a long history of objects getting past the X-ray scans, for example. There's no reason to believe that the rate of failure will be any lower with humans reviewing the full body scans. A machine properly calibrated and programmed to scan for suspicious objects would dramatically reduce the number of scans needing review by humans, and the human reviews would likely be more accurate because of the lowered fatigue.

[MineralMan]

7. Perhaps. TSA workers switch off frequently to different tasks

for just that reason. Humans are very good at spotting things...far better than machines are. It's a difficult job, no matter how you look at it. Dogs, even well-trained dogs, have their own priorities, though. They aren't as smart as humans, and can't talk to us to tell us how they're feeling or what it is that they think they've sniffed out.

I don't think there's any simple answer to this equation of getting 1.5 million people screened on a daily basis. The same issue arises if we adopted Israeli method. Too darned many people streaming through security lines at our major airports to effectively handle this way. There's the biggest difficulty. It's just one of sheer numbers. I'm not sure what the solution might be, to be honest.

[Fleshdancer]

6. The ones I see when I travel internationally are ridiculously cute

I have to actually remind myself to not go up and pet them because they have a job to do. The one's I've seen weren't big and scary looking, but then again, I'm not scared of dogs so I'm not the best person to judge what is scary for those who are.

I've only seen them in the baggage claim area too so I wonder what bomb sniffing dogs in the security lines would entail. In the baggage claim, they weren't instructed to sniff every bag. I assume this is because their noses are so sensitive that they don't have to be right on a person or object to smell something wrong?

[RC]

8. Baggage claim? Isn't that a little late?

Behind the ticket counter would be better use.

[Fleshdancer]

9. Yeah, I thought it was odd too

Maybe they were drug dogs instead? The only conclusion I could come up with is that the airport didn't trust the other airports to do their jobs correctly. :shrug:

[Retrograde]

10. Probably customs dogs

looking for contraband like meat. IIRC, different dogs are trained to detect different things.

[amborin]

11. no, they can't detect PETN

[MineralMan]

13. There ya go, then.

So much for bomb-sniffing doggies, then.

Now, if someone was making bombs from salami, I'll be they'd be great...:rofl:

[JuniperLea]

16. Bad info...

Check out this post by TorchTheWitch:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9624741&mesg_id=9632163

I knew I'd seen this info before!

They can detect the detonator or fuses already... and they can be trained to detect plastic explosives. Dogs are still very much on the list of possible solutions.

[MineralMan]

17. Thanks for the link!

[amborin]

20. LA Times: difficult for dogs to detect PETN

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/24/nation/la-na-petn-20101124

[JuniperLea]

15. This is false information... I keep seeing it...

Here are some good links thanks to TorchTheWitch:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9624741&mesg_id=9632163

I'm off to find more, because I know I've seen other studies and reports on this recently.

[JuniperLea]

14. I've always thought dogs were the perfect solution...

They are being trained to detect cancer in humans... successfully. They have been extremely successful at finding drugs in luggage, despite the layers of tinfoil and bags used to deter detection. Big dogs, little dogs, all sorts of dogs could be used. We could put a big dent in shelter populations at the same time. Mutts work as well as any other dog.

Well trained dogs don't bite, even when provoked, unless trained and ordered to do so. Of course some parents have instilled their own fear of dogs on their children, so it would take some getting used to. I don't think it would be any scarier for a kid to be sniffed by a dog than to be touched all over by a stranger, even if the child was afraid of dogs.

[MineralMan]

18. The real problem is the one I raised in the OP:

Numbers. Too many people to make it practical. Right now, they're doing what they do best, screening luggage and cargo.

[FarCenter]

19. Why would a competent bomb-maker leave residues on the outside of the bomb.

Put the explosives in a gas-tight container and clean the outside thoroughly. Use an electrical detonator with a sealed feed-through for the leads.

Problem solved.