Maryland's Correctional Commissioner Mike Stouffer and Major Peter Anderson, the head of the K9 unit there, talk about these newly tasked dogs. They can detect a tablespoon of a When does spring start? If a smuggler can get his or her hands on a lead box that seals tightly, allowing no odors to escape, this might be the best Narrator: The dogs learn to associate the smell of the chemical with being fed and that's what motivates them to search for it. They are among the biggest problems prison officials face. How do these dogs actually learn to sniff out cell phones? Corrections officials say she'll be ready soon, all those hidden cell phones are calling. Virginia uses cell-phone sniffing dogs, and Maryland began using cell-phone sniffing dogs this summer. He had PTSD and his life was falling apart. "[Dogs are] constantly detecting things," and they don't have control over that any more than we have control over seeing what's in front of us if our eyes are open, she explained. WebPolice dogs can be trained to sniff out electronics like cell phones, thumb drives, computers, and memory cards. Other states may soon find themselves having to follow suit. Jupin: A lot of the work we do is crimes against children or child exploitation work where we're looking for devices that have illegal content on them. Do they have a future? This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. If they clear their physicals, Landrum said, the dogs begin their training. Im looking for possessiveness, a dog that can see food and not care about it as much as about the thing in his mouth. If I train a dog on a cocaine thats off the street and been cut 10 or 15 times, Id be training him to smell all sorts of different things. Halligan: All that is, is a simple food reward system. The dog is not going to work its a game for the dog, trying to get their toy, trying to find what theyre trained to find to get their reward. What led you to look into dogs in medicine? The program started in 2012 to help investigators find digital evidence to crimes. Another mystery now: how I never seem to know where my cell phone is. The officers are so proud of their dogs they beam. Theyre among the biggest problems prison officials face. The process can take up to nine weeks, and not all dogs will pass the training. Nonprofit journalism about criminal justice, A nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. This smaller breed was developed in England's Scottish-bordering county of Northumberland for herding livestock, especially sheep. Trainers scent one toy with four target odors, such as marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines, and heroin, and teach the dogs to find the toy. People ask: why not blood hounds and beagles? Another area in which dogs excel in the clinical world is for patients with diabetes. Dogs can screen as many to 200 to 300 people per day in the same environment, Maurer said. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. You reported on dogs doing this kind of work all over the world. Which travel companies promote harmful wildlife activities? They can sniff in parts per trillion. And they even get to have normal lives outside of work. Once the target scent has been isolated for training, dogs learn very quickly to seek out cell phones and components, and seem to greatly enjoy the work. Mr. MIKE STOUFFER (Commissioner, Maryland Department of Correction): Cell phones have become in all prisons throughout the country a problem as far as contraband control. We like to use dogs that are bred for air sensing. SEABROOK: So, we just saw Taz in action. We can only keep track of what we actually find. One of the most recent problems problem that dogs have been called out to deal with involves cell phones. Often, their handlers hoist them onto shelves or bunks so they can sniff out items in hiding places such as vents or other elevated locations. Some dogs dont like heights. I mean, couldn't you just, I don't know, jam the signal or something? And their distinct odor can lead a well-trained canine to a device hidden under a mattress, stashed into a wall or tucked into a fan or radio. We don't even completely understand, you know, just how good their olfactory system is. They watch our body language all the time. The dogs' noses are so sensitive that they can smell a marijuana seed from up to 15 feet away and marijuana residue on clothing from drugs smoked two nights before. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. One time we searched a federal institution, the maintenance area. He hated that feeling. I also met Mike Stouffer. All rights reserved, ruling last month by the U.S. Supreme Court. They are also concealed in packages, food deliveries, or in body cavities when a girlfriend visits. If you train your dog on circuit boards, they might just find things that are allowed in the prison, like mp3 players or radios. Or they dont like the heat up there in the summer., Officer Joseph Nicholas: All our dogs right now are German shepherds or Labs. They truly believe that their toy is what theyre looking for. The canines also get experience searching in different environmentslike open brush, forested areas, or airportsthat they're likely to encounter in their seven-year-plus careers, Landrum said. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. I think was the first thing they asked. What are some of the stranger places your dogs have found cell phones? "Detection is a physiological phenomenon," Cablk said. Webment of Corrections paid $6,500 each to train two cell-phone sniffing dogs in 2009. Border Collie. You might think that the solution lies with technology, and it should be possible to simply to jam the cell phone transmissions in the prisons. Who better to sniff out this mystery than a dog? The dog-handler teams must then pass a certification trial before they can graduate and go into the field. They can sniff in parts per trillion. Does a Dog's Head Shape Predict How Smart It Is? Razor's name is a riff on the name of the popular Motorola cell phone, the RAZR, but she isn't the only state with a cell-phone dog detective. They can usually tell ahead of time when a child is about to have a tremendous amount of anxiety, panic, meltdown or what have you. You write about doctor dogs helping people with autism. I tried asking a similar question here when my kelpie bitch went into season and I received mostly abuse and unhelpful answers so I thought Id hel In order to get the dogs to find phones, we imprint them with lithium niobate, since lithium is commonly found in cell phone batteries. Maybe a dog dont like the slippery floors in the cellblock, or the noise, or the food odors. It is hard to describe the smell in words, however the scent was a sort of a sweet metallic smell that I might fantasize that a newly built robot would have, with perhaps a faint ozone-like overtone. He did go to school, but that was tough, too. We trained all our dogs ourselves, saving the taxpayers money. This is to train the dogs to identify the smell of TPPO even if the device has been torched. A dogs sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times as acute as humans. [ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/dogs-sense-of-smell.html ]So yes, they According to the government website USAJOBS.gov, explosive detection dog handlers earn from $47,000 to $98,500 at major U.S. airports. How many beats per minute is normal for a dog? Donations from readers like you are essential to sustaining this work. A particular problem affects dogs that are worried by heights. hide caption. So we use German shepherds, Malinois, German shorthairs, labradors. So, they obviously have a much better sense of smell. Lloyd is the super calming presence. Razor, meanwhile, still has another six weeks left of an eight-week training. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. And the temperament of the Labradors fits that profile and that's why we use them exclusively. Cellphone's ubiquitous. The Maryland They're able to detect ovarian cancer in one drop of plasma from a woman with ovarian cancer. Narrator: In 2015, an electronic-sniffing dog found a hidden thumb drive at Jared Fogle's house. In the past five years, prisoners in Maryland and Tennessee used cell phones to help organize murders, run drug operations, and plan escapes. Copyright 2008 NPR. It's also not enough to just have a good sense of smell to be a good sniffer dog. "Dogs are not robotsthey all come with their own personalities," Cablk said. span I comment. I dont do that, because I think youll get other odors mixed in with it. All rights reserved. And I wanted to find the best of the best, cutting-edge medical dogs around the world. We dont want them to take the dog home, which is something that happens often with search dogs. You could be a police officer looking to increase security. If you want a dog that finds tomatoes, you want your dog to be trained on fresh, vine-ripe tomatoes, not tomato sauce. The dog found the electronics desk and everyone thought, Oh well the dog is just trained to find electronics. But then there was a hole in the wall, with a second workshop, where the inmate was fixing cell phones. With TPPO isolated, handlers can train the dogs to locate devices. And if they're paired with a person, they bond with that person to tell them something that will save their life. And immediately followed by the sounds of flushing. They can follow any scent that's left on the ground and find where it leads. Knowing what you value will help you build the most meaningful life possible. The basic, pervasive cell-phone smell that built up in the closed box was powerfula sweetish, metallic, ozoney, weird robotic reek. In pitting faith against reason, M. Night Shyamalans latest film is a call to capitulation. To Troy, Ernie, Chance, and the other muscular, well-fed, and extremely enthusiastic dogs who search for illegal cell phones inside New Jerseys thirteen state prisons, the smell of a cell phone is bliss. You need to keep it as a game. All rights reserved. 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