When Bob and I were tasked to produce two "working explosive detection dogs" from the dogs currently available we decided to start with the dogs already assigned to us. We didn't know any better, at that time, just how important the selection of a working dog was and how it made all the difference, in the end, in what kind of bomb detection ability you had.
Nope, we just jumped in with both feet and hoped we wouldn't die.
Bob had a beautiful young black lab female named Dee and I had a squatty little yellow lab called Katie. We were assigned to the "graveyard" shift (11:00 p.m. 'til 7:00 a.m.) so that we would have the maximum amount of training time possible as well as access to as many training areas as were available at these hellish hours. Now don't get me wrong, I was thrilled to be training dogs as a professional but anyone who has worked all night, every night, knows that life can get complicated as you try and maneuver each day in a coma. Nevertheless, we swore to each other, Bob and I, that we wouldn't quit. And that we would turn out the best bomb sniffing dogs ever! Man, I look back on that time with a sense of awe at our confidence in the face of staggering ignorance.
At this point you may be wondering just how wise it is to begin training bomb dogs when you really don't know what you are doing. Yeah, me too. We used a training program cobbled together from police and military training manuals. We used odor materials (small amounts of explosives) that were several years old, handling it with exaggerated care as we did not want to experience what a close friend of mine who was a bomb technician called "a rapid going away accompanied by a loud bang" ...you get the idea. We didn't have any formal training at this time in the proper handling and storage of explosives but we did our best.
Training a bomb sniffing dog is different from training any other detector dog in that they cannot aggressively tell you where the bomb is. For example, drug sniffing dogs are taught to follow there natural behavior when finding drug odor by scratching, barking and biting at the source of the smell. Scratching, barking and biting at the source of explosive odor is a good way to have one of those "going away" incidents I mentioned previously. This can result in your day going south. So, bomb dogs have to indicate with an immediate, silent sit. Seeing as the dog knows that a toy is produced from the source of the odor (this is done by sleight of hand, at least that is the theory) it is a significant challenge to get the dog to sit quietly while the reward is presented. In fact, it can be really, really challenging.
Each new odor is given to the dog to memorize and then a series of increasingly difficult searching scenarios is undertaken until the dog will find and sit at the exact spot where the target odor is strongest. I am being deliberately simplistic here as I have no intention of this story being a chapter in Terrorism 101. Take it from me, this kind of training, especially when you don't know exactly what you are doing, can cause fits of extreme anxiety denoted by running about pulling frantically at your hair screaming vile names at the universe.
We persevered. We came up with our own training methods. We improvised, adapted, overcame! And, at the end of three months, we held a demonstration for our fearless leaders in which K-9s Dee and Katie searched for, found and indicated correctly on a dummy device that had been hidden previously. TAH DAH!!! I was pretty freakin' proud of our accomplishment, with one small hitch...
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