Psychonauticunt
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2010
- Messages
- 1,322
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?
