What drugs can dogs actually smell?

[Psychonauticunt]

A big ole study was done recently in which it was sort of apparent that some dogs responded to their handlers more than smelly things.

Well it would hardly be the first time the law uses subterfuge to suddenly 'unlock' additional powers to search, detain, or provoke incriminating behavior or a confession - so hardly surprising.

Also, after you've seen a sniffer dog actually working, you will realize that from maybe 30-70% of the time, depending on your luck, size of the airport and your country, the dog will be sitting at the handler's feet, clearly not busy sniffing shit out. Dogs aren't exactly known for their great subtlety, nor is in the customs officers' interests to have dogs tone down their noses and engage in covert ninja sniffery. It may not be working, or it may not even be a drug dog. Half of the point of the dog being there is to provoke nervous behaviour in guilty people, something the handlers have learned to pick up on after years of spoiling everyone's fun and just generally being pains in backsides all round the world.

The dogs are also never 100% foolproof, though their sense of smell is highly acute. They also seem to be trained to react to only larger amounts of drugs. On an average flight from Amsterdam to anywhere, you're going to have a bunch of people that smell enough of weed for the dog to detect it, but chances are only a handful are actually carrying more than ground up crumbs in their pockets. Speaking of crumbs in pockets, I've walked past a dog (doing its job, sniffin' the ever loving fuck out my pants as I walked past) going into Finland and realized later at my destination that in addition to the hashish securely stowed away in my digestive system, I had inadvertently brought a small amount of what my nose determined to be a decent line of speed, as well as enough ground up weed for a small but perfectly serviceable joint.

Now, it may have been that it was having a shit day, or wasn't even a drug dog in the first place. Maybe the guy behind me had a suitcase full of cocaine and exotic animals. Or maybe they expect so many people to smell slightly of drugs that the dogs are taught to ignore obviously insignificant amounts?

 

[jancrow]

It's a bit subtler than that, as this was an exercise (ie not in public) and neither dogs nor handlers knew where any drugs (or decoy packages) were stashed. So rather than the handler deliberately triggering a dog to 'alert' they found that dogs were more likely to 'alert' when their handlers suspected that drugs were in a particular location. Seems the dogs responded to their handlers' expectations.

Obviously a dog is more likely to respond to larger amounts of drugs as there's more there for them to smell.

Some conmen claim to be able to smell large quantities of banknotes, which is useful to them when they go door to door looking for confused elderly people (who stash money under their beds) to exploit. The mind boggles!

 

[Spin2021]

SWIM was stopped by a sniffer dog entering Latvia a few weeks ago because his jeans smelt of weed from the night before. He also had 20 tabs of LSD wrapped in clingfilm stuck in a book. The dog sniffed him all over for a few minutes but in the end they let him go.

He was also shitting himself, SWIM wouldn't do so well in a Latvian prison.

 

[Shambles]

I suspect you wouldn't like it either. SWIM seems to get in all kindsa shit. I'd avoid SWIM if I were you. In fact I'd avoid SWIM cos it's actually specifically prohibited in the BL rules. Stick to the first person please - no SWIMming allowed as it provides a false sense of safety from legal consequences when it actuality it does nothing of the sort. It's also really quite hard on the eyes to read when used regularly and also kinda irritating.

Glad you avoided Latvian prison - I can't imagine that would be any kinda fun. FWIW, LSD is odourless so dogs shouldn't be able to smell it no matter how well trained. I wouldn't put my faith in that completely though - those noses really are quite impressive.

 

[Inflorescence]

 

[subotai]

^lol

 

[my3rdeye]

LOL at that too.
I am not as worried about the dogs as i used to be, I think their effectiveness is limited. The border pigs have some technology (ion scanner?) that allows them to detect drug particles at minute levels though. They asked my friend why he was covered head to toe in cocaine residue. His answer was "I was in Vegas."
Don't use ID cards to chop up powders. I always do my laundry before crossing border too.

 

[Inflorescence]

There is so much cocaine residue on notes in circulation (can't quantify this with a percentage right now) but we all know it's ludicrously high..In eight cities in Italy alone there are traceable cocaine and cannabis in the very air and there are traceable amounts of prozac and hormones from birth control pills in our drinking water supply in the UK. Can dogs smell that underlying everything else..no idea,

So while not answering the question it does make you wonder....

No idea if this page makes more questions than answers but here is a linkage any hew..

P.S for all the good it will do I bleach my cash cards and run them through dishwasher before European travel..and order new ones before more exotic travels..I also find my Tesco club card a better idea (other supermarket club cards are available )

 

[parttime crackhead]

Are you smuggling all sorts across the border? If not, why the para-ness about cards etc? My wallet will be chock full of drug residue but I couldn't care less when crossing a border because I don't actually have any drugs on me and I'm not attempting to go anywhere with crazy lock you up for trace amounts drug laws.

 

[my3rdeye]

Are you smuggling all sorts across the border? If not, why the para-ness about cards etc? My wallet will be chock full of drug residue but I couldn't care less when crossing a border because I don't actually have any drugs on me and I'm not attempting to go anywhere with crazy lock you up for trace amounts drug laws.

Sick of getting strip searched, hassled, my name put in database to be hassled next time.

 

[Shambles]

There is so much cocaine residue on notes in circulation (can't quantify this with a percentage right now) but we all know it's ludicrously high..In eight cities in Italy alone there are traceable cocaine and cannabis in the very air and there are traceable amounts of prozac and hormones from birth control pills in our drinking water supply in the UK. Can dogs smell that underlying everything else..no idea,

So while not answering the question it does make you wonder....

No idea if this page makes more questions than answers but here is a linkage any hew..


P.S for all the good it will do I bleach my cash cards and run them through dishwasher before European travel..and order new ones before more exotic travels..I also find my Tesco club card a better idea (other supermarket club cards are available )

Generally said to be 99% of bank notes in circulation in the UK test positive for cocaine revenue. I suspect that may be somewhat pulled from the universal arse but do believe the Bank of England actually does test banknotes so perhaps more rounded up and rounded off than purely made up. It's a lot anyway.

My limited experience with sniffer dogs (only had the pleasure during raids at my own home - never come across whilst out and about... so far) is that they're surprisingly hit and miss. They go nuts over nothing and completely miss stashes so large I could smell them let alone a dog. I wonder sometimes if they're used more for show and as an excuse to search on human suspicion rather than dog nose. Not all the time obviously but they're certainly not as reliable and infallible as is often suggested.

Of considerably more interest to me than how many ecstasy tabs does it take for a dog to sniff 'em out (that's be one unless I'm very much mistake) was...

Q. what is german for bumscratcher and knicker sniffer

A. We're sorry, but there is no literal translation to German for "bumscratcher" or "knicker sniffer." "One who sniffs knickers" is "Wer knickers schnuppert."


Read more http://www.kgbanswers.co.uk/what-is...er-and-knicker-sniffer/23150443#ixzz2zKUt6icF

These are the serious questions which need answering I'm sure we can all agree.

 

[MrPorter]

Had a sniffer try me on my way into a small one night festival while rolling balls, with about .5g on me but not in my pockets. It instinctively went to my pockets and waistline and no where else. There wasn't really a queue since I turned up late, only about 8 of us, so I can't imagine they were in a rush at all. 90% of people there were probably on MDMA or Ket though and security were incredibly relaxed so I can't imagined they cared. Some people were caught out by the dogs though, but none with dealer sized amounts so maybe they were just shifty

I've never come across these ion scanner things travelling ever. How would they even work?

 

[Shambles]

Had a sniffer try me on my way into a small one night festival while rolling balls...

Quite frankly you deserve the dog treatment if not for drugs then for criminal abuse of the English language

 

[MrPorter]

I didn't fancy carrying all 18 ping pongs downhill into the gig, jheeze!

 

[Sprout]

I once got sniffer-ed for the contents of my bag, which were promptly emptied to reveal 30 empty 100g bags of poppy seeds and 17, again empty, co-codamol boxes.
Nothing illegal, just a baker with migraines and a confused tram carriage.

 

[Ismene]

The longer you don't wash your arse, the less chance they'll find the drugs. Logically, if you never wash your arse they will never get the drugs.

 

[Shambles]

Logic = flawless.

Arse = whiffy.

 

[spacejunk]

FWIW, LSD is odourless so dogs shouldn't be able to smell it no matter how well trained. I wouldn't put my faith in that completely though - those noses really are quite impressive.

The link in this thread no longer works as it should - but the idea of LSD being "odourless" (etc) may be true for humans, but there are chemicals on the market available to trainers of drug detection dogs that teach the mutts to sniff out acid.

What drugs can dogs smell?
Anything they are trained to - though I agree their use in policing is very often to spook people, to search people with little evidence beyond the say-so of a cop with a dog (who I would speculate is often led by the handler's instructions as much as any drug scent - especially of individuals in a crowd) and of course to search people who act suspiciously when confronted by fuzz with a hound.

Personally I think animals should be kept out of the police force.
Sniffer dogs, also.

 

[Shambles]

Personally I think animals should be kept out of the police force.
Sniffer dogs, also.

Agreed. And also agree with the rest of your post. I actually recall that PD thread (littered with many a fine member from days of yore as it is - so many in there who no longer post, a real shame) and kinda presumed dogs could conceivably be trained to sniff out LSD. I very much doubt it's a high priority though and I know it's expensive to train dogs so probably not many are actually trained specifically for LSD. Speculation of course but I really can't see it being a priority. I would imagine more or less everything has an odour which could be detected with sensitive enough equipment and a dog's nose is pretty damn sensitive equipment. Isn't space supposed to smell of lavender? Perhaps that was the last message Laika sent home...

I'd also agree that it's almost certainly handler prompting dog in many situations - especially large crowds - do they not sit down to indicate a find rather than bark as they seem to do in public? Saw a documentary or two that went into quite a bit of depth about sniffer dogs, their training and their actual abilities. From what I gather they are extraordinarily good but only under ideal conditions and varies a lot from dog to dog and situation to situation. Certainly not the absolute guarantee of being rumbled suggested sometimes. I know during busts I've been involved in (receiving end, not enforcing end) that a dog missed a half oz of heroin that was just in a baggie in a torn open beer can and a carrierbag half full of weed stuffed under the boiler in a cupboard (not the best quality weed but I could smell it let alone a dog). Good but very far from infallible. Kinda hit and miss I'd say. Deterrent more than anything but clearly when they are on form they will find pretty much anything.

 

[swampdragon]

Yeah, I had a nosy at some security firms' websites and a few say they have dogs that can detect LSD. Most don't, though. (Also a sizeable number of them claim to offer a doggy presence, without sniffing ability, just as a deterrent.)

I didn't fancy carrying all 18 ping pongs downhill into the gig, jheeze!