President Jay Gogue: U.S. Representative Christopher Carney and U.S. Representative Mike Rogers visit with trainer Daniel McAffee and Spike, a detection dog. Contributed
A recent Auburn graduation attracted the attention of Congress. The graduates from the Canine Detection Training Center will soon be starting their careers with federal and local law enforcement agencies.
“An effective detector dog team is the most capable, readily available and least expensive detection tool that is available to local first responders and law enforcement,” said Brian Keeter, Auburn director of public affairs. “Our goal is for Auburn to become the premier provider and certifier of detector dogs to the U.S. federal government.”
The program’s success initiated the July 22 Congressional hearing at the Canine and Detection Training Center in Anniston, at the former Fort McClellan. Members and staff of a sub-committee of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, including U.S. Representative, R-Ala., Mike Rogers and U.S. Representative, D-Pa., Christopher Carney, were in attendance to see the program firsthand. After touring the facilities, the congressmen watched a demonstration of the detector dogs in action.
Jim Walker, director of the Alabama Department of Homeland Security, and Dennis Schrader, deputy administrator of the National Preparedness Directorate, a component of FEMA, both testified at the hearing to an audience of more than 100, including law enforcement and first responders from around east Alabama.
According to Keeter, there is a tremendous need for the protector dog services. They are ideal for the protection of rural communities. They serve as a visible deterrent to crime and terrorism against government buildings and airports. More and more local jurisdictions and federal agencies have an interest in having trained detector dog teams on their force.
Auburn-trained detector dog teams serve across the country and around the world. They are employed by the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq, U.S. Coast Guard, customs, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Federal Protective Service and MARTA.
In Alabama, Auburn-trained dogs keep illegal drugs and firearms from entering Lee County schools and interdict illegal drugs on Interstate 85.
“The Auburn detector dog program has become the gold standard in providing detector dogs to local law enforcement agencies and public safety officials,” Keeter said. “What makes this program unique is that we do everything from start to finish. We do research, breeding and training. No one else does that.”
“It is first and foremost a research and development program,” said Dr. Paul Waggoner, director of the Auburn University Canine Detection Research and Training Institute. “Since 1990, we have endeavored to better characterize how dogs can detect substances of interest, such as explosives, drugs and hazardous chemicals and also how to better train and employ those dogs for detection purposes.”
Dr. Waggoner said the purpose of the breeding program looks for behavioral and physical characteristics that will enable a dog to successfully complete training. How the dogs are raised is just as important as the breeding.
The College of Veterinary Medicine studies the dog’s athleticism, as well as its sniffing capabilities. These studies in olfaction and sports medicine contribute to the enhancement of canine detection technology.
The Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Pharmacology in the College of Veterinary Medicine has several patents for its technology related to canine detection research.
According to the patent, they have developed a system and method for observing, collecting and analyzing olfactory characteristics of a human or animal subject, such as sniffing, breathing and respiratory patterns and sounds.
“We use this technology to analyze the sound of sniffing the moment the dog finds the target to examine the dog’s capability as a good sniffer,” said Dr. Vitaly Vodyanoy, professor of sensory physiology and biophysics and director of the Biosensor Laboratory.
Olfactory science includes studying how the nose works, how odor is sensed and how that information is handled, coded and organized by the brain. According to Waggoner, understanding these genetics is important not only in dog training, but in the development of electronic sensors. Those strategies nature has designed are applied to the development of instrumental techniques for the detection of hazardous chemicals.
“We are currently working for the Transportation and Security Laboratory (TSL), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, to develop what has been termed a ‘first responder assistance dog,’” Waggoner said. “These dogs are instrumented with various sensors like a TV camera and act as a foreign observer for first responders. They can be deployed and controlled remotely by radio to go out and assess the hazards in an area before people go in.”
Labrador retrievers are the focus of the breeding program, but other dogs are also used. Waggoner said the program’s opinion is not that Labs are absolutely the best dogs, but they work well for the job.
“Labs make the most versatile dog for the different tasks which we develop and train them to do,” Waggoner said. “The customer base for detector dogs wants dogs that the public finds approachable and friendly just by appearance.”
Puppies are born at the institute and stay until they are 8-10 weeks old. Waggoner said the program of raising the puppies involves collaboration with correctional facilities, where inmates train the dogs for vocational education credit.
Puppies are trained at the prison until 11-12 months old when they return to the institute to begin their training for detection work. The dogs are evaluated for their potential and selected for a particular field.
Government agencies or state and local law enforcement send individuals to become dog handlers. After a few weeks of classroom preparation, they are partnered with a dog. The handler and dog, as a detector dog team, complete the rest of the course together.
If the dog and handler do well and meet the qualifications, they are certified as a detector dog team.
