Ohio K-9s trained to detect marijuana being forced to retire

[BN]

Ohio K-9s trained to detect marijuana being forced to retire

https://news.yahoo.com/ohio-k-9s-trained-detect-030013245.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADqsJ41gb0kspmf-3E0eQ7n4Di38OgbQFKGFwiz4ZaBsdEwVgXne_oeOSUUa-9rqBO0uQGg1HSpMmCvzWPo0xz8zBZUXkUI0j1nK57H7P03O_9v _I2-_P284fBYA8DK8Vr7GvPQua7jSapIAIlUGwMZ6UeHws7Z3vKY3Y qvC9oY_

I saw UNK posted about dogs and remembered this. Sad news for a lot of dogs and handlers.

[CCT125US]

Unintended consequences.

[WobblyPossum]

Makes sense. I’ve been told by K9 handlers that you can’t untrain a dog to stop detecting an odor. The dog can’t tell you what drug odor it’s alerting to so there are suppression issues if a dog alerts to a vehicle that ends up having marijuana in it in a jurisdiction where marijuana is legal. “Your honor, the police K9 alerted to my client’s vehicle and the subsequent search revealed marijuana in addition to the narcotics my client is charged with possessing. Marijuana is legal in this state. If the police K9 alerted to the smell of marijuana, the subsequent search was illegal and any evidence found must be suppressed.” The easiest way to rebut that argument is if you can say this dog was never trained to alert to the odor of marijuana. The NM State Police K9 officers all got new partners when NM legalized marijuana.

[Coyotesfan97]

We saw that issue coming long before Arizona voters legalized Marijuana. We stopped training new narc detection dogs in Marijuana before it happened. The state association had to write a new certification for dogs that weren’t trained in Marijuana. Once the dog is imprinted and trained in the odor he’s not forgetting it and you’re not training it out of him.

Most of our our patrol dogs were crossed trained in narc detection. If we did have a dog (never happened) that was trained in Marijuana after it was legalized it’d just be a single purpose patrol dog until he retired

[UNK]

Ohio K-9s trained to detect marijuana being forced to retire

https://news.yahoo.com/ohio-k-9s-trained-detect-030013245.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADqsJ41gb0kspmf-3E0eQ7n4Di38OgbQFKGFwiz4ZaBsdEwVgXne_oeOSUUa-9rqBO0uQGg1HSpMmCvzWPo0xz8zBZUXkUI0j1nK57H7P03O_9v _I2-_P284fBYA8DK8Vr7GvPQua7jSapIAIlUGwMZ6UeHws7Z3vKY3Y qvC9oY_

I saw UNK posted about dogs and remembered this. Sad news for a lot of dogs and handlers.

Could be an opportunity for sure Thank You!! You know Im not a dog trainer, dont pretend to be one but one line in that article has me saying, sumthin ls not right here. Some politician is saying they “cannot retrain the dogs for something else”. 😐. I gotta call bullshit. Maybe someone who is a real life trainer or handler can chime in. Also is a single use dog really 20k?

Coyotesfan97 already best me to it. So is that price real?

[Borderland]

I've trained a few dogs to hunt for me. My experience is you have to start them young. I'm not seeing older dogs being trained for other drugs if they weren't trained when young.

Using the birds or drugs you want them to point (alert) should be part of their young training.

My last bird dog wouldn't point a chicken. Different scent. Probably smelled too much like people.

[Coyotesfan97]

Could be an opportunity for sure Thank You!! You know Im not a dog trainer, dont pretend to be one but one line in that article has me saying, sumthin ls not right here. Some politician is saying they “cannot retrain the dogs for something else”. 😐. I gotta call bullshit. Maybe someone who is a real life trainer or handler can chime in. Also is a single use dog really 20k?

Coyotesfan97 already best me to it. So is that price real?

The prices of dogs have gotten crazy. I think we were paying 12-15K when I retired.

It really depends on the dog for retraining. For us our detection cross training was secondary in Mals and Dutchies trained to find people as their primary gig. If theyre Malinois single purpose drug dogs that generally means they didn’t have the right stuff as a patrol dog. If they’re breeds like Labs or other retrievers that’s not going to be an option.

You could train them as cadaver dogs or train them for S&R. They definitely have other things they could do. At the least retire them with them handler.

[UNK]

The prices of dogs have gotten crazy. I think we were paying 12-15K when I retired.

It really depends on the dog for retraining. For us our detection cross training was secondary in Mals and Dutchies trained to find people as their primary gig. If theyre Malinois single purpose drug dogs that generally means they didn’t have the right stuff as a patrol dog. If they’re breeds like Labs or other retrievers that’s not going to be an option.

You could train them as cadaver dogs or train them for S&R. They definitely have other things they could do. At the least retire them with them handler.

Funny I talked to two different companies charging stupid rates for obedience and personal protection. There are apparently clients out there with more money than sense.

[0ddl0t]

I've never trained a dog for drug searches, but I have for search & rescue, barn hunt, sheds, etc. They all start being taught to alert to things like birch and anise before moving on to other scents. Dogs are pretty smart and quickly stop alerting on old training scents once you stop rewarding them for it, but I don't have to justify any of my alerts with a defense attorney...

[vcdgrips]

OL

Actually, folks who prosecute are not trying to justify anything with a defense atty, only the judge/court who rules the evidentiary issue in the first instance and the finder of fact (usually a jury) in the second, to the extent applicable.

In most jurisdictions, a dog alert is probable cause that controlled substances/contraband is present. If you search is already supported by the dog hit, and then you come across somethings whose illegality is patent on its face i.e. a sawed off shotgun, that is going to be admissible too. Ergo why MJ trained dogs are being retired wholesale.


Words in this context mean things. Please consider staying in your lane.


PS- I am certain my admitted "snark" in my comment above, is at least, in part, connected to your Israel thread comments. Having said that, It chaps me a bit when folks talk about things like the law, law enforcement, medicine, science and military matters without any meaningful training/education/experience re the same and do not effectively caveat their comments before doing so.

[Le Français]

I've never trained a dog for drug searches, but I have for search & rescue, barn hunt, sheds, etc. They all start being taught to alert to things like birch and anise before moving on to other scents. Dogs are pretty smart and quickly stop alerting on old training scents once you stop rewarding them for it, but I don't have to justify any of my alerts with a defense attorney...


OL

Actually, folks who prosecute are not trying to justify anything with a defense atty, only the judge/court who rules the evidentiary issue in the first instance and the finder of fact (usually a jury) in the second, to the extent applicable.

Words in this context mean things. Please consider staying in your lane.

PS- I am certain my admitted "snark" in my comment above, is at least, in part, connected to your Israel thread comments. Having said that, It chaps me a bit when folks talk about things like the law, law enforcement, medicine, science and military matters without any meaningful training/education/experience re the same and do not effectively caveat their comments before doing so.

0ddl0t did write “with a defense attorney…”, which I read to mean “…contesting the issue.” not “to a defense attorney”. An action is justified to someone, not with someone.

[Coyotesfan97]

A seasoned dog that’s been imprinted and trained to find Marijuana has been rewarded in training for finding hundreds if not thousands of times. They’ve been rewarded for street finds. I’ve never heard a police dog trainer argue for unimprinting a dog. If it was a something that could be reliably done there’d be a booming business doing it.

It gives an argument for the defense that is difficult to overcome. It’s why some drug runners started carrying legal amounts of marijuana with loads of illegal drugs.

[0ddl0t]

I didn't think I was being ambiguous, but just in case:

1) Dogs can absolutely be trained to ignore scents they were previously trained to alert on. It is an extremely simple, albeit time consuming, process where you alternate between 4 conditions:

search area with no desired scents whatsoever
search area with scents you want to be alerted to
search area with scents you want to be alerted to and also marijuana you don't
search area with marijuana


Under no case do you reward the dog for alerting on marijuana. And you keep doing these over and over in different orders. 30-60 minutes training sessions at a time, 2-3 times a week. After a couple weeks to a couple months, the dog will no longer alert on marijuana.

2) Whether the courts will have faith in the integrity of searches performed by retrained dogs is an entirely different matter. You should note that the various news articles generally didn't consult reputable dog trainers for quotes, but rather politicians and lawyers. Given that ill-trained and nefarious handlers already have issues with false alerts (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/02/05/supreme-courts-alternative-facts-about-drug-sniffing-dogs/) and that training quality varies dramatically, it makes some bureaucratic sense for departments to just avoid the appearance of an issue rather than face defending the quality of training of every specific dog/handler combination.


PS: handler cheating is a big enough problem that in many scent work trials judges will ask the handler what the dog's alert is before the run (e.g. my dog sits, my dog barks, my dog paws at, etc). A nefarious handler could still cue a dog to alert, but if they're having to do that their dog is slow enough to be out of contention...

[DDTSGM]

I didn't think I was being ambiguous, but just in case:

1) Dogs can absolutely be trained to ignore scents they were previously trained to alert on. It is an extremely simple, albeit time consuming, process where you alternate between 4 conditions:

search area with no desired scents whatsoever
search area with scents you want to be alerted to
search area with scents you want to be alerted to and also marijuana you don't
search area with marijuana


Under no case do you reward the dog for alerting on marijuana. And you keep doing these over and over in different orders. 30-60 minutes training sessions at a time, 2-3 times a week. After a couple weeks to a couple months, the dog will no longer alert on marijuana.

2) Whether the courts will have faith in the integrity of searches performed by retrained dogs is an entirely different matter. You should note that the various news articles generally didn't consult reputable dog trainers for quotes, but rather politicians and lawyers. Given that ill-trained and nefarious handlers already have issues with false alerts (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/02/05/supreme-courts-alternative-facts-about-drug-sniffing-dogs/) and that training quality varies dramatically, it makes some bureaucratic sense for departments to just avoid the appearance of an issue rather than face defending the quality of training of every specific dog/handler combination.


PS: handler cheating is a big enough problem that in many scent work trials judges will ask the handler what the dog's alert is before the run (e.g. my dog sits, my dog barks, my dog paws at, etc). A nefarious handler could still cue a dog to alert, but if they're having to do that their dog is slow enough to be out of contention...

Hmm, sounds like you know something about scent dog training.

[BillSWPA]

Isn’t marijuana still a schedule I drug under the Federal Controlled Substances Act and therefore illegal under federal law, regardless of state law?

[WobblyPossum]

Isn’t marijuana still a schedule I drug under the Federal Controlled Substances Act and therefore illegal under federal law, regardless of state law?

Correct but these aren’t federal LE agencies being discussed. The alerts these dogs are indicating and the cases those alerts lead to are being litigated in state courts. Federal LE K9s trained in narcotics detection like those used by BIA Police Officers for example are still being trained to alert for marijuana, not necessarily because anyone is looking to charge marijuana in federal court, but because probable cause is probable cause and if the marijuana alert leads to a massive fentanyl seizure, it’s all good in federal court. That search isn’t going to get thrown out.