Officer Snoopy.
Man's best friend also may be a criminal's worst adversary. With proper training, canines can be used by law enforcement for bomb squads, sniffing out drugs, or simply to intimidate disorderly offenders. Dogs possess certain advantages over their anthropomorphic counterparts in a police department. Their superior sense of smell allows them to track down criminals and contraband that would elude their human handlers.
Detection Dogs
You may have seen them in the airport among the luggage carousels. Wearing official green DEA jackets, these beagles sniff out drugs. Smugglers, commonly known as "drug mules," frequently attempt to bring cocaine and heroin into the U.S. via commercial flights. Detection dogs are used to find them. Besides narcotics, detection dogs also are used to locate bombs, explosives, and firearms. Recently, they also have been trained by prison guards to sniff out cell phones, which are illegal inside the correctional system. Border collies are a popular breed for cell phone retrieval.
Guard Dogs
A snarling, growling animal on a leash often may be more intimidating to a criminal than a police officer. Police often use guard dogs to hold suspects at bay. This type of dog requires highly disciplined training. On one hand, a guard dog must comport itself peacefully on the beat. Overly aggressive behavior is undesirable. However, in an emergency situation, the dog must be able to take down or attack a suspect at the drop of a hat. German Shepherds are the most popular breed for this sort of work but police also employ Doberman Pinschers, Rottweilers, and Labrador Retrievers.
Search Dogs
Search dogs are used to locate missing people and criminals. There are several sub-categories of these animals. Trailing dogs follow the trail of a fugitive or other person of interest based on the scent of an item (e.g. clothing) associated with their target. If no scent article is available, tracking dogs physically track the path of a person via footprints or other evidence. Air scent dogs also do not require a scent item. Instead, they pick up traces of human scent that drift through the air and follow that smell to its source.
Post-Mortem Search Dogs
This subcategory of search dogs specializes in locating human remains. Water search dogs detect bodily gasses that rise up from corpses under water. They alert police divers of their location so they can retrieve the bodies. Cadaver dogs react to the scent of dead people. During a crime scene investigation, they can detect minute amounts of human remains and even blood drops.
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