Prior to 9/11, Work Dogs International imported, trained, and sold approximately 14 explosive detection dogs to and from our bomb dog facility per year. More than half of these trained bomb sniffing dogs were export ed to the Middle East to work with military police and security units. After 9/11, however, requests for qualified dogs and handlers rocketed to 80 bomb dog detection teams per year. Currently that number stands at 30 per year. In short, the days of a sloppy looking handler shuffling up to search a building with an elderly bomb sniffing dog are over.

Today's security units and clients demand a team that shows professionalism and creates a safe, sound business safety net. Neither the handler nor the dog should act or look as if they are ready to crawl underneath the building in order to get a burglar bite. With this in mind our explosive detection dog training course is 400 to 600 hours in length, with dozens of classroom hours training handlers in the recognition of explosives, detonators,switches, and the importance of hand searches and physical reconnaissance prior to the utilization of their dog.

Dozens of hours are spent training handlers to do a hand search with mirrors prior to putting their dog to work. This allows us to use our dog or dog teams in more sensitive areas while allowing us to overlap the teams to insure quality work.

One way to tell a qualified handler is by asking how many explosives their dog knows. If they answer "almost all of them" then that person isn't a trained professional. Most explosive experts and dog handlers know that there are literally thousands of explosives and hundreds of thousands of chemicals and chemical make-ups, with more being made daily. Certainly for security reasons a dog handler shouldn't tell very Tom, Dick, and Harry how many and what type of explosives h is dog is able to detect. But when asked, a professional should respond with anywhere from 10 to 14 explosives.

For decades, largely because before 9/11 few if any bomb dogs did much work, bomb dog teams have been notorious for keeping inadequate records if any records were kept at all. Today there is no such luxury. The thing to remember is that civil and criminal liability will not come to bear over missing a bomb. It will become an issue in scenarios such as "you're dog barked and threatened me," or "your dog scratched my limo," or "you only had your dog check me because of my race or religious preference." For these reasons it is vital to keep proper training records, proof of certification and re-certification, training testing and obedience records, and properly filled out canine action forms.

With so much at stake, a bomb detection dog and his handler should both be thoroughly trained and certified professionals. At Workdogs International, we make certain that is the case.