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How Police Dogs Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry and the Stuff
0:16
Speaker 1: you Should Know in the long running, never ending Law
0:20
Speaker 1: Enforcement Suite. Boy's got to be close to dune. Huh.
0:28
Speaker 1: I think that every time. In fact, I had to check.
0:32
Speaker 1: I was like, I could have sworn we had done
0:35
Speaker 1: this one. No, but we didn't. I guess we just
0:37
Speaker 1: did service dogs. We didn't service dogs or service talks
0:41
Speaker 1: in general. To be these service talks are guide dogs.
0:43
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Remember that was a great, great one.
0:48
Speaker 1: I always left talking about dogs. In fact, we should
0:52
Speaker 1: just do one on dogs. Very interesting. I can't believe
0:55
Speaker 1: we haven't. Yeah, it's pretty pretty fascinating, the history and
0:59
Speaker 1: the breeds and how that all works, and so yeah,
1:03
Speaker 1: this is about specific dogs more often than not, German
1:07
Speaker 1: shepherds and Belgian malwaws. Don't forget about the beagle brigade.
1:12
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there's so cute, the cutest little service brigade
1:16
Speaker 1: on the planet. Love little beagles until they start howling,
1:19
Speaker 1: But other than that they're very cute. That's right, do
1:22
Speaker 1: they howl more than most dogs. Beagles. No, but when
1:26
Speaker 1: they do, they can howl. Okay, they're like a hound.
1:29
Speaker 1: They remember the hounds. Yeah, my too. Um how at
1:32
Speaker 1: the sirens they go by? Yeah, because it's like and
1:37
Speaker 1: howling machine to the I love it though. I think
1:39
Speaker 1: it's great, gotcha because it's over before you know it,
1:42
Speaker 1: and it's I just like it. You have a beagle,
1:45
Speaker 1: do you know? But they how Yeah? Most dogs how huh,
1:51
Speaker 1: it's not like a beagle trade. I thought it was
1:54
Speaker 1: beagles and hounds and bassa hounds blood. I grew up
1:58
Speaker 1: with basset hounds. It's pretty great at your house. Yeah,
2:02
Speaker 1: that was boh, he was awesome. He used to trip
2:04
Speaker 1: on his ears. He's step on them, those poor dogs. Yeah,
2:09
Speaker 1: that's back when I knew better and got like, you know,
2:12
Speaker 1: I want this breed of a dog. Let's go buy
2:14
Speaker 1: one now. You know you rescue the much from the kennel.
2:19
Speaker 1: That's how you should get a dog. All right, I'm
2:22
Speaker 1: off my soapbox. So, like I was saying, Malonois, German shepherds, labs,
2:30
Speaker 1: police dogs and how and little um beagles mainly German
2:36
Speaker 1: shepherds though, Yeah, from what I've seen well, apparently the
2:39
Speaker 1: Belgian ones are pretty Um, I'm pretty sure I'm saying
2:42
Speaker 1: it right. Malon Wis, Well, that's where it all started
2:46
Speaker 1: in Belgium. Yeah, let's start with the history of police dogs, man,
2:50
Speaker 1: because while they are pretty ubiquitous here in the United
2:54
Speaker 1: States these days you always see like a car that
2:56
Speaker 1: says like canine unit or whatever. Um. They like to
3:00
Speaker 1: release the dogs a lot these days on protests, which
3:03
Speaker 1: is pretty disheartening. Um, it's actually fairly recent, at least
3:07
Speaker 1: in the United States. Europe has been doing this fred
3:10
Speaker 1: at all time. Yeah. The first recorded police dogs were
3:15
Speaker 1: in France uh in the fourteenth century that guarded duck installations,
3:21
Speaker 1: and then UH in eight London the London Metropolitan Police
3:25
Speaker 1: Force first to use bloodhounds to work the Jack the
3:30
Speaker 1: Ripper case. Really, man, A lot of stuff came out
3:33
Speaker 1: of that case. Yeah, A lot of things like forensics
3:36
Speaker 1: that we're using today still and shouldn't be came out
3:39
Speaker 1: of that case. And they still couldn't catch them. No,
3:41
Speaker 1: never figured it out. Did you ever see that? Um? Oh,
3:46
Speaker 1: what was the guy from Night Rider's name? I can't
3:48
Speaker 1: with the half what's his full name? Yeah, David Hassle
3:51
Speaker 1: he goes by the though. Yeah, um, he did it
3:54
Speaker 1: one where the Tower Bridge or the London Bridge was
3:58
Speaker 1: um re built in at like um in Arizona. What's
4:04
Speaker 1: that famous lake in Arizona, the resort like habits. Yes,
4:09
Speaker 1: they rebuilt the London Bridge at Lake have a sou
4:13
Speaker 1: and Jack the Rippers ghost came with it and started
4:15
Speaker 1: killing everybody like a TV movie. I think it was
4:18
Speaker 1: made for TV. It certainly has the production value made
4:22
Speaker 1: for TV movie. And Hasselhoff is the police detective with
4:25
Speaker 1: the bad attitude who's the only guy with the chops
4:28
Speaker 1: to solve this case, and everybody thinks he's crazy because
4:31
Speaker 1: he's like, it's Jack the Ripper's ghost. It was. I
4:34
Speaker 1: saw it when I was a kid, and I think
4:35
Speaker 1: it's on like Amazon Prime, so it's coming for free.
4:39
Speaker 1: I don't remember what it's called, but it's on there. Man,
4:41
Speaker 1: I gotta seek that one out. Uh. That's crazy. And
4:46
Speaker 1: that was back in his night Rider hey day. I
4:47
Speaker 1: guess yeah, he was clearly righting high pre Baywatch even
4:51
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, Oh, I forgot he was on Baywatch.
4:54
Speaker 1: Wasn't name I mean that's oh, he made his name
4:57
Speaker 1: all over the place on stage screen. Yeah, now he's
4:59
Speaker 1: just uh so Belgium in Ghent g h e n T, Belgium. Um,
5:07
Speaker 1: they first started using about ten years later than London
5:11
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety nine, and they actually had a program
5:13
Speaker 1: set up, Yeah, like the first real police dog program
5:17
Speaker 1: and it was a big success. Uh. And in October
5:20
Speaker 1: of nineteen o seven, New York Police Department Chief I
5:25
Speaker 1: guess George Wakefield went to Gahant in Belgium and came
5:28
Speaker 1: back with five dogs. They just followed him home. Started
5:32
Speaker 1: using them in New York City in nineteen eight Yeah,
5:34
Speaker 1: and then uh, New Jersey followed suit very quickly, and
5:38
Speaker 1: so did Detroit. The thing is, all of these um
5:41
Speaker 1: police canine units were disbanded within a few years because
5:45
Speaker 1: they didn't know how to train the dogs properly. Yeah.
5:48
Speaker 1: I think the thing I saw said, from nineteen fifty
5:51
Speaker 1: one to nineteen fifty four there were no police dogs
5:53
Speaker 1: in the United States, and then later in the nineteen
5:56
Speaker 1: fifties they started coming back. In the nineteen seventies they
6:00
Speaker 1: became really widespread as far as many municipalities having a
6:06
Speaker 1: canine unit. Yeah. Um. And initially it was like, oh,
6:11
Speaker 1: I need a police dog. You have a German shepherd
6:15
Speaker 1: and uh, leave it to me in your will. That
6:18
Speaker 1: was like a police dog arrangement for a while. And finally,
6:21
Speaker 1: law enforcement agencies around the country Apparently two thousand one
6:25
Speaker 1: set off a huge boom in demand for police dogs.
6:28
Speaker 1: That's one of the big reasons why they're so ubiquitous today,
6:31
Speaker 1: although they've been in use a lot longer than that. Um,
6:35
Speaker 1: but in any small town now you're gonna find like
6:38
Speaker 1: at least one canine unit post nine eleven. Right, So,
6:43
Speaker 1: but at some point they figured out the ones that
6:45
Speaker 1: they're doing in Europe, let's just import them from there
6:48
Speaker 1: because they know what they're doing in Belgium and Holland
6:51
Speaker 1: and in other areas where they have these long standing
6:54
Speaker 1: police training programs where you can buy a certified dog
6:58
Speaker 1: and then you act teach the trainer how to how
7:02
Speaker 1: to deal with that dog, rather than the trainer training
7:05
Speaker 1: the dog, because the dog already comes trained and ready
7:08
Speaker 1: to go. Well, there's still a lot more training you
7:11
Speaker 1: have to do once you get them over here. But um,
7:14
Speaker 1: from what I read, it's like bucks to buy the
7:17
Speaker 1: certified dog and then another tin grand to train them.
7:20
Speaker 1: In the United States, Yeah, but they pay for themselves. Well,
7:24
Speaker 1: they do because they're usually paid for with drug money
7:27
Speaker 1: that has been seized sometimes by um by drugs that
7:32
Speaker 1: have been sniffed out by police dogs. So the police
7:35
Speaker 1: dogs are generating income to bio police dogs. Among other
7:38
Speaker 1: things yea, and fat doghouses and great treats like the
7:44
Speaker 1: frozen ice cream treats that dogs love so much. I
7:47
Speaker 1: bet canines get those. Why do they use dogs? One
7:51
Speaker 1: good reason is because their sense of smell is about
7:54
Speaker 1: fifty times more sensitive than the humans, which that you
7:58
Speaker 1: don't need any more reason than that, Right, they can smell.
8:02
Speaker 1: They I think this is the grabster wrote this one, right. Uh.
8:05
Speaker 1: He actually interviewed a canine team, the human part of
8:10
Speaker 1: that team and New York and he said that his
8:14
Speaker 1: dog Breaston found a shipment of marijuana and heat sealed
8:18
Speaker 1: milar bags inside plastic line crates sealed with foam silent
8:23
Speaker 1: inside a closed storage garage with a cold Yeah, half asleep.
8:30
Speaker 1: So that's that's a little bit. Uh, that'll tell you
8:33
Speaker 1: a little bit about the sensitivity of a dog's nose.
8:35
Speaker 1: It's pretty amazing. They don't get confused. You can you
8:39
Speaker 1: can bury your drugs and coffee or wrap them and
8:42
Speaker 1: perfume and the dog will still go no, no, I
8:45
Speaker 1: know it's in there. Let's try now, let me bite
8:50
Speaker 1: your crotch. And the reason they are they knows as
8:54
Speaker 1: oars since was they had something like um, like old
9:00
Speaker 1: three receptors where we have something like five million. Yeah,
9:04
Speaker 1: we're dummies in the smell department. So um. Dogs are
9:09
Speaker 1: also used not just for sniffing stuff out, whether it
9:11
Speaker 1: be drugs or bombs or whatever. They're also used as
9:14
Speaker 1: patrol dogs UM, which basically means that they're attack dogs
9:20
Speaker 1: at the ready. UM. And apparently just the very presence
9:25
Speaker 1: of a dog can keep a physical confrontation from taking
9:29
Speaker 1: place or escalating. Oh yeah, I've seen it on cops.
9:32
Speaker 1: When they get that dog out, you most often see
9:35
Speaker 1: the dude go okay, I'll get where do you want me?
9:40
Speaker 1: Because they've got that dog barking and they don't. I
9:43
Speaker 1: don't know. It's weird that being beaten down by a
9:45
Speaker 1: human isn't enough, but let dog is is scary. You know, Well,
9:52
Speaker 1: you can't really reason with the dog. It can't be
9:55
Speaker 1: like enough. Yeah what am I saying? I don't know
9:58
Speaker 1: if you can reason with the CoP's keating me down there.
10:00
Speaker 1: So with the um with the dog, actually they fall
10:03
Speaker 1: into this um spectrum of escalation of violence that's allowable
10:10
Speaker 1: among law enforcement and actually come after the baton, but
10:15
Speaker 1: before the cop draws this gun. Right, So baton doesn't work,
10:20
Speaker 1: you can release the dog. The dog doesn't work, you
10:23
Speaker 1: can pull your gun, and then if that doesn't work,
10:25
Speaker 1: you can pull the trigger. That's the continuum of violence,
10:33
Speaker 1: continuum of force. I'm sorry, big difference. Let's just call
10:38
Speaker 1: it violence. Um, they're not lulla buying people to sleep
10:43
Speaker 1: and putting them in the police car, you know what
10:44
Speaker 1: I mean? Uh, Like we said, it's usually German shepherds. Um.
10:49
Speaker 1: Sometimes they use labs now labrador retrievers. Uh what is
10:53
Speaker 1: that called again? You said it once before, the Belgian
10:56
Speaker 1: malonois melonoi and of course the beagles would we'll talk
11:00
Speaker 1: about here in a bit. They're all well suited to
11:03
Speaker 1: police doggery work and they can uh get them all
11:10
Speaker 1: over the place. Like you said, sometimes they're donated. But
11:13
Speaker 1: by and large, if you want a really cracked police dog,
11:16
Speaker 1: you still need to go to Europe. It's where it's
11:18
Speaker 1: worth the money. Yeah, apparently because if there are issues
11:22
Speaker 1: later on in court, about the dog. Apparently the first
11:26
Speaker 1: thing defense attorneys will say is your pay post please? Yeah,
11:30
Speaker 1: and like they want to see this dog's background. As
11:32
Speaker 1: far as the Supreme Court's concerned, which we'll talk about later,
11:35
Speaker 1: is of two thirteen. That's all they need to say. Uh.
11:38
Speaker 1: And the reason they get these dogs from europe um
11:40
Speaker 1: is because their standards are just way more strict and they,
11:45
Speaker 1: like you said, basically like let's just take this dog
11:48
Speaker 1: and train them like this dog has been bred from
11:52
Speaker 1: this lineage, right, I don't like that that light patch
11:55
Speaker 1: on that dog's ear. Kill it. Don't say that, well,
11:59
Speaker 1: they don't breed it, yes, kill it's genetic line right.
12:03
Speaker 1: As far as Richard Dawkins is concerned, they might as
12:06
Speaker 1: well be saying kill it, neuter it. Well, and that's
12:08
Speaker 1: a big thing. As they leave these mail dogs they're
12:10
Speaker 1: usually male dogs, and gave them unneutered because that will
12:13
Speaker 1: keep that aggressive streak intact um, which took them to
12:19
Speaker 1: the cop. It's sort of the same thing. You want
12:22
Speaker 1: the best of the best, right right, Yeah, I mean ideally, yes,
12:26
Speaker 1: this is all like in ideals and and hypotheticals, it's all.
12:30
Speaker 1: It all makes utter sense. And I think that's how
12:32
Speaker 1: it works out most of the time. Yeah, they there's
12:34
Speaker 1: not any cop can go be a canine cop. It's
12:37
Speaker 1: you required. You're required to be at the very top
12:40
Speaker 1: of your class, very strong, energetic personality, very outgoing, willing
12:45
Speaker 1: to work very long hours. It turns out I did
12:48
Speaker 1: not realize this. Yeah, well, well we'll talk about in
12:52
Speaker 1: a minute. But they say sixty hours a week and
12:55
Speaker 1: they and that's just working. The dog lives with you.
12:58
Speaker 1: It's your dog, seven dude. Yeah, so they have such
13:02
Speaker 1: a tight bond. You were that dog's handler for its
13:04
Speaker 1: whole career. Yeah, and I think the time these cops
13:09
Speaker 1: keep these dogs after they're retired as well, Oh, I
13:12
Speaker 1: would guess. So, yeah, it'd be hard to be like,
13:14
Speaker 1: all right, go live with someone else. Good luck in
13:17
Speaker 1: your retirement. Al Right, let's take a break here and
13:20
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit about dog basic training right
13:23
Speaker 1: after this. So, Chuck, the first thing that I'll police
13:48
Speaker 1: dogs go through is obedience training. Kind of basic and simple,
13:54
Speaker 1: but it's also probably the most important training they go through,
13:57
Speaker 1: especially when they're patrol dogs, because they have to listen
14:01
Speaker 1: to their handler or else things can go um really bad,
14:06
Speaker 1: really fast. Because their handler is going to tell them
14:09
Speaker 1: when enough is enough. Uh and if the dog isn't
14:13
Speaker 1: understanding this and doesn't have that basic obedience, then you
14:15
Speaker 1: can get in big trouble. Yes, as a as a
14:18
Speaker 1: police force and as a canine unit. Lawsuits arrest. Well,
14:23
Speaker 1: I'll probably not arrest um Ed points to dog. Can't
14:26
Speaker 1: you end? Point? Now you can't? Um? Well, I guess
14:29
Speaker 1: you can. In a way the dog catcher arrests dogs.
14:34
Speaker 1: Um I thought that was an apt analogy. Uh so
14:39
Speaker 1: Ed points out or Ed dispels a myth here actually
14:43
Speaker 1: where um I guess a lot of the dogs that
14:46
Speaker 1: come over from Europe take commands in their native language, right,
14:50
Speaker 1: which makes total sense. But apparently there is a myth
14:54
Speaker 1: that the reason why is because they don't want people.
14:58
Speaker 1: Besides the handler acts ofly or purposefully setting the dog
15:02
Speaker 1: off to attack by saying the word not true. No, Apparently,
15:06
Speaker 1: it's just it's easier for the dog to retain the
15:09
Speaker 1: training it had and for the handler to just learn
15:13
Speaker 1: a few words in a foreign language. Yea, it makes
15:16
Speaker 1: total sense. You're not gonna get a German shepherd that's
15:18
Speaker 1: fully trained and say all right, now, forget all that
15:22
Speaker 1: because I want to say sit and not zitsen zits
15:26
Speaker 1: in is um sit in German plots, plots has laid down.
15:33
Speaker 1: My friend Clay has a German shepherd he bought from Germany,
15:37
Speaker 1: and uh he gives commands in German, which is pretty interesting. Yeah,
15:44
Speaker 1: you hear a lot of plots around his dog. I
15:47
Speaker 1: grew up with German shepherds. A couple of them. Plots
15:49
Speaker 1: is more efficient because it's one syllable and lay down
15:52
Speaker 1: as two. Yea makes sense. Germans efficient. Uh what else
15:58
Speaker 1: they can get into specialty training? They need to be uh, well,
16:02
Speaker 1: they need to have endurance and be super agile and
16:04
Speaker 1: be you know, physically fit dogs. But then they go
16:07
Speaker 1: through specialty training like whether it's drugs or bombs. Um.
16:12
Speaker 1: I know arson is a big one now to have
16:14
Speaker 1: them seek out accelerants. They can even track people, um,
16:19
Speaker 1: which I didn't quite get and getting how they do it,
16:23
Speaker 1: but I don't understand how they actually do it well.
16:26
Speaker 1: When I've seen it on cops, it's been like they
16:28
Speaker 1: have a piece of clothing from a guy and then
16:32
Speaker 1: there's like he's in this attic in this house somewhere
16:35
Speaker 1: to find him, so they have to have something to
16:37
Speaker 1: to scent the dog. Yeah, I think, so, Okay, that's
16:40
Speaker 1: I did. That's what I didn't get. I mean, like,
16:42
Speaker 1: if it's just some guy who ran, then the dog
16:44
Speaker 1: wouldn't really be of any use right now, Like just
16:46
Speaker 1: a description of the purp wouldn't help. So um. This training, actually,
16:52
Speaker 1: the secondary training or specialty training, is actually really simple
16:57
Speaker 1: and kind of clever and fun. It is so the
17:00
Speaker 1: first thing the dog learns to do is to love
17:04
Speaker 1: a towel more than anything else on the planet. It's
17:07
Speaker 1: it becomes its toy, a towel that's been washed to
17:10
Speaker 1: remove any kind of scent, so the towel doesn't have
17:12
Speaker 1: its own scent, and the dog learns to love it
17:15
Speaker 1: by playing tug of war with it, right, And then
17:18
Speaker 1: in very short order, the cop gets his hands on
17:21
Speaker 1: a little bagging of pot and rolls it up with
17:24
Speaker 1: the towel and they keep playing tug of war, and
17:26
Speaker 1: now the dogs like, hey, my favorite toy smells a
17:30
Speaker 1: lot like pot. Okay, Now the next step is for
17:34
Speaker 1: the cop to hide the towel filled with pot, and
17:38
Speaker 1: the dog finds it, and then they play tug of war,
17:41
Speaker 1: and eventually the dog will learn that anytime it smells pot,
17:45
Speaker 1: it thinks it's toy is hiding, and it goes after
17:48
Speaker 1: and starts digging in the place where that it smells pot.
17:51
Speaker 1: And hence the dog has just sniffed out pot, which
17:55
Speaker 1: means that drug sniffing police dogs are playing, which I
18:00
Speaker 1: didn't realize until pretty awesome. They think about when you
18:03
Speaker 1: see a dog clawing at the trunk of that guy's car,
18:06
Speaker 1: he's like, my toys in there, my toys in there. Uh.
18:10
Speaker 1: And then they will replace that pot with all manner
18:13
Speaker 1: of drugs to cross strain the dogs, so they can
18:16
Speaker 1: basically they'll stuff that suitcase that um that Hunter Thompson
18:20
Speaker 1: steels please conce into a towel. And yeah, they can
18:27
Speaker 1: also do like explosive components too sure for bombs and
18:31
Speaker 1: then accelerants in the case of arson. Arson sniffing dogs
18:35
Speaker 1: are a big thing now. That's all the rage. They're
18:38
Speaker 1: so hot right now. And there's two ways that can alert.
18:42
Speaker 1: The aggressive alert is what we were just talking about,
18:44
Speaker 1: is when they think there's that toy and they're just
18:46
Speaker 1: clawing and pawing and trying to dig it out of
18:49
Speaker 1: your suitcase or wherever. And then there's the passive alert,
18:53
Speaker 1: and that is when you don't want a dog clawing
18:56
Speaker 1: all up in your junk and you need a little
18:58
Speaker 1: more delicate situation, which is the case with the Beagle Brigade. Yeah,
19:02
Speaker 1: they just come and they sit next to the person.
19:05
Speaker 1: That's how they alert. That's the cutest alert alert. Yeah,
19:09
Speaker 1: And that's the kind of cut their toward the person.
19:15
Speaker 1: The Beagle Brigade works with the U. S d A
19:18
Speaker 1: and they sniff out illegal produce. So you might have
19:22
Speaker 1: seen them at the airport here and they were like
19:24
Speaker 1: little um best. Yeah, but not bulletproof fests, but like
19:31
Speaker 1: patrol dogs to you. In fact, they have I think
19:34
Speaker 1: ed mentioned a fundraiser. They had to get bulletproof fest
19:38
Speaker 1: for the dogs at this one, and they like people
19:40
Speaker 1: just flooded them with money, right, you know, because it's
19:43
Speaker 1: not cheap. No, I have I have no idea how
19:46
Speaker 1: much bulletproof vest is for Kena and unite do you
19:49
Speaker 1: you just know the one that you have? How much
19:51
Speaker 1: that cost? No? I don't know. My guess is a
19:57
Speaker 1: bulletproof fest is probably a couple of grand Okay, I'm
20:01
Speaker 1: just throwing that out there. That's what i'd pay, That's
20:03
Speaker 1: what you pay, well, my friend, you would be taken
20:06
Speaker 1: for a ride because I a canine tactical mole vest
20:12
Speaker 1: for a hundred. That's a dubious and apparently Miami Heat
20:18
Speaker 1: star Ray Allen has a side business where he supplies
20:22
Speaker 1: canine protection and safety products. And this is a segment
20:26
Speaker 1: called Josh reads his phone on the air. You've done
20:31
Speaker 1: that before. Don't even play holier than now. Yeah, you're
20:35
Speaker 1: looking at the name of the impossible the other day
20:38
Speaker 1: while I was yapping. That's like the only time I've
20:40
Speaker 1: ever done that. So, uh, let's talk about a day
20:45
Speaker 1: in the life of a dog, a canine dog. I
20:49
Speaker 1: didn't know this before. They even go on patrol from
20:53
Speaker 1: four pm to midnight. They're gonna be going to high
20:56
Speaker 1: schools and going down the hallways sniffing ackers. They're gonna
21:01
Speaker 1: be sniffing businesses. If you need a business sniff, you
21:05
Speaker 1: can call them and say, hey, I'd like to pay.
21:08
Speaker 1: I guess you can pay, right, you just requested. I
21:11
Speaker 1: guess the request. The cops are like, it's an investment
21:15
Speaker 1: in a bust, right, good point. Uh, some days you
21:19
Speaker 1: have to go to court and then the dog has
21:20
Speaker 1: to go to court as well. And then eventually they
21:23
Speaker 1: will actually work their shift. And this is why they
21:25
Speaker 1: worked such long hours because they're busy during the day
21:27
Speaker 1: and then they go to work at night when they
21:29
Speaker 1: need to be banging the streets and you're so tough,
21:35
Speaker 1: but uh. And when they're on the streets, what they're
21:41
Speaker 1: doing is um just like any other cop. Basically, you know,
21:46
Speaker 1: you do a lot of sitting around and waiting on
21:48
Speaker 1: calls to come in. Then when that call comes in,
21:50
Speaker 1: you might be sniffing out a car. You might be
21:53
Speaker 1: chasing a purpose. Yeah, you could be doing both. Yeah,
21:56
Speaker 1: the dog that is um and when you are snoop
22:00
Speaker 1: in a car if you're a dog. The Supreme Court
22:03
Speaker 1: ruled that a dog alert is enough for probable cause
22:09
Speaker 1: for a police search like that in and of itself.
22:12
Speaker 1: So if the dog alerts it's trainer, who is or handler?
22:17
Speaker 1: I should say, who's the only person on that scene
22:20
Speaker 1: who can read the dog's behavior necessarily um that then
22:25
Speaker 1: that officer has a um a right to search that car. Yeah,
22:30
Speaker 1: And that's very delicate matter because there's a lot of
22:34
Speaker 1: claims of false signals that a cop will make the
22:39
Speaker 1: dog react just so they can Basically that the canine
22:43
Speaker 1: dog is a prop used to get search whenever they want. Yes,
22:49
Speaker 1: and those some people say that those are um, well, yeah,
22:52
Speaker 1: and I guess we'll talk about it later. The false positives, yeah, well,
22:57
Speaker 1: that'll be quiet for now. We can talk about no. Well,
23:00
Speaker 1: false false positives are the thing that you, um are
23:04
Speaker 1: most concerned with with police dogs because they usually do
23:08
Speaker 1: not miss drugs the presence of drugs when they are present.
23:13
Speaker 1: Police dog, when it's brought around to like a car
23:15
Speaker 1: or something like that, it knows the score. It knows
23:18
Speaker 1: that it's supposed to be looking for its toy, so
23:20
Speaker 1: it's gonna start sniffing around. Um. The thing is is
23:24
Speaker 1: thinking about sniffing its toy. We're sniffing for its toy,
23:28
Speaker 1: and that's this whole thing. It's entirely possible that it's
23:31
Speaker 1: going to detect the presence of its toy, meaning drugs
23:35
Speaker 1: are there when it's not there, um, and then it'll
23:39
Speaker 1: give it an alert and then a full search will begin,
23:44
Speaker 1: which is not a problem when that actually results in
23:48
Speaker 1: the the the discovery of drugs. But that apparently happens
23:53
Speaker 1: generously speaking, only um like forty six percent of the
23:57
Speaker 1: time they find drugs when a police dog says there's
24:02
Speaker 1: drugs there, which means like fifty percent of the time
24:05
Speaker 1: the police dog is saying that there's drugs there when
24:07
Speaker 1: there aren't, which means a lot of people innocent, A
24:10
Speaker 1: lot of innocent people get their their property searched. Yeah,
24:13
Speaker 1: and there's a Chapel Hill, North Carolina law professor named
24:17
Speaker 1: Richard Meyers who in two thousand and six wrote an
24:20
Speaker 1: article on the George Mason Law Review where he basically
24:22
Speaker 1: said the controlled testing to get UH numbers on these
24:27
Speaker 1: dogs is terrible. Um. And he he did some math
24:31
Speaker 1: based on something called the Bayesian probability formula where he
24:35
Speaker 1: said he thinks it could be as high as eighty
24:37
Speaker 1: five percent failure rate or false positive rate. Yeah, supposedly
24:42
Speaker 1: there was UM in Florida. There were some dogs that
24:46
Speaker 1: were being used on a stretch of highway where they
24:48
Speaker 1: put up roadblocks a lot that were like wrongent of
24:53
Speaker 1: the time in the eighties or something like that. Yeah,
24:55
Speaker 1: And I think they said one of the big issues
24:57
Speaker 1: is when they're doing that like random, not like pulled
25:00
Speaker 1: someone over. But hey, I'm at the border and there's
25:02
Speaker 1: three cars in this line, sniff them all, right, Because
25:05
Speaker 1: the The idea is that most of those cars are
25:08
Speaker 1: going to be free of drugs, but the dogs like
25:11
Speaker 1: looking for drugs. This whole thing is it's looking for
25:14
Speaker 1: its toy, and the context is different for the dog
25:17
Speaker 1: than the average person who's just trying to get through
25:19
Speaker 1: the border. You know, it's very slippery slope, it is.
25:22
Speaker 1: And then it gets even more slippery when people when
25:25
Speaker 1: juries convict based on evidence from dogs. So, for example,
25:30
Speaker 1: there was a guy named I think his name is
25:32
Speaker 1: Paul Yell who was convicted of intentionally burning down his
25:36
Speaker 1: own house, killing one of his kids inside because a
25:39
Speaker 1: police dog um detected accelerants. Well, the lab went behind
25:44
Speaker 1: the dog where the dog said there's an accelerant here
25:47
Speaker 1: and tested the area and in zero of those six
25:51
Speaker 1: did it find the presence of accelerants. The jury is
25:54
Speaker 1: still convicted of because the dog said that the guy
25:57
Speaker 1: had used accelerance, even though the lab couldn't verify those results. Um.
26:02
Speaker 1: And there was another guy in a state trooper in
26:04
Speaker 1: Florida in the eighties named John Preston who had a
26:08
Speaker 1: dog named harrass too, And it turned out this guy
26:11
Speaker 1: helped put away like more than a hundred people and
26:14
Speaker 1: it was basically like a framer for hire. You could
26:17
Speaker 1: bring him along and basically let him know what you're
26:19
Speaker 1: looking for, and he would say that his dog had
26:22
Speaker 1: had found whatever evidence you needed. And at least two
26:25
Speaker 1: people were exonerated of murder um who were convicted in
26:29
Speaker 1: part by evidence detected by this dog. Harrass too who
26:34
Speaker 1: was handled by Preston. And there's two really good documentaries.
26:37
Speaker 1: One is um a killing in Canova Beach. Remember when
26:41
Speaker 1: Paulson was on our episode or podcast for the Innocence Project.
26:45
Speaker 1: It's a documentary about that. And then there's another one
26:48
Speaker 1: called An Innocent Man. It's about a guy named Michael Morton.
26:51
Speaker 1: Both of them feature this guy, John Prestons is notorious,
26:55
Speaker 1: infamous dog handler. Even among dog handlers. He's despised because
26:59
Speaker 1: he gave the idea of of um canine units. It's
27:02
Speaker 1: just a really bad name because everybody's like, well, if
27:05
Speaker 1: this guy is doing it, how many other people are
27:07
Speaker 1: doing it? Right? And then all of a sudden, you
27:09
Speaker 1: can't use canines anymore? All right, Well, we'll take one
27:13
Speaker 1: more break and come back and talk some about Uh, well,
27:16
Speaker 1: what are we gonna talk about? Let's talk about dogs,
27:43
Speaker 1: all right? So here's a little stat for you. UM,
27:46
Speaker 1: on a drug sweep a canine, they're very efficient a
27:49
Speaker 1: canine unit. The dog can cover ten times as much,
27:55
Speaker 1: uh ten times quicker to search an area than a
27:58
Speaker 1: human cop goold, and be way more apt to find
28:03
Speaker 1: the drugs than a cop might. Which again, it makes
28:05
Speaker 1: sense because if if you can't disguise a shipment of
28:10
Speaker 1: drugs very well from a dog's nose, then you're in
28:13
Speaker 1: trouble first of all, but also most people are trying
28:16
Speaker 1: to disguise it from humans, which means you're trying to
28:19
Speaker 1: make it so it doesn't look like drugs. But even
28:23
Speaker 1: if you go to the trouble of disguising the scent,
28:26
Speaker 1: it's still probably not gonna work for a well trained dog.
28:31
Speaker 1: Police dogs are considered they're kind of treated like regular
28:35
Speaker 1: cops as far as protections and the law goes like,
28:38
Speaker 1: if you shoot and kill a police dog, they treat
28:41
Speaker 1: it as if you had shot and killed a police officer. Yeah,
28:44
Speaker 1: a guy in Pittsburgh recently got three and a half
28:47
Speaker 1: to seven years for stabbing a police dog to death. Um,
28:50
Speaker 1: so I guess it's not just like it because if
28:52
Speaker 1: you kill the cop, you'd probably go to the chair, right,
28:55
Speaker 1: you wouldn't get three to seven years. UM. In Tennessee,
28:58
Speaker 1: they recently passed the law called Erin's Law in honor
29:02
Speaker 1: of a police dog that's mentioned in here that went
29:06
Speaker 1: down and during a bank robbery. He was killed the
29:10
Speaker 1: bank he kept he kept going after the bank robber
29:12
Speaker 1: that was shooting at him. Uh. And apparently he's credited
29:16
Speaker 1: for distracting the robber enough for the human cops to
29:20
Speaker 1: get the safety and eventually they the swat team killed
29:23
Speaker 1: the bank robber, but the dog was killed in the process.
29:27
Speaker 1: But that was and it wasn't until this year two
29:31
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen that Tennessee passed a law called Aaron's Law
29:35
Speaker 1: that makes it a felony to kill a police dog.
29:38
Speaker 1: And and intentionally kill a police dog. I'm surprised it's
29:41
Speaker 1: just not a felony everywhere. Yeah, it is kind of surprising. Uh.
29:46
Speaker 1: And then in terms of being treated like regular cops
29:49
Speaker 1: as far as the use of force, the justification is
29:52
Speaker 1: the same with the dog. Uh. And they said, and
29:56
Speaker 1: it says in this article that in court typically use
30:00
Speaker 1: of force is justified if the suspect is armed, if
30:04
Speaker 1: they have not yet been searched by officers, or if
30:06
Speaker 1: they are fleeing a serious crime scene, that's when you
30:11
Speaker 1: can release the hounds. Yeah, and so, like we said,
30:15
Speaker 1: usually just the the certificates of training are enough for
30:20
Speaker 1: a court to be like, Okay, it's fine that that
30:23
Speaker 1: dog probably didn't overstep its bounds, despite what the guy
30:27
Speaker 1: who's now suing the police department because he got bit
30:30
Speaker 1: by this police dog is saying. Because he's a he's
30:33
Speaker 1: a trained dog, trained European police dog, um, and the
30:38
Speaker 1: track record doesn't have to come into account. It's just
30:41
Speaker 1: that's enough for most courts to say, Nope, excessive force
30:45
Speaker 1: was not used. Yeah. I think we're going to see
30:47
Speaker 1: a lot more stuff about this in the future. False
30:51
Speaker 1: triggers and well rulings. Forensic forensic investigation as a whole
30:58
Speaker 1: is under a microscope like now her before and and
31:01
Speaker 1: very appropriately. There's a lot of stuff that's still just
31:05
Speaker 1: based on hunches that's being passed off as science and
31:07
Speaker 1: courtrooms and people are being convicted on. Even DNA can
31:12
Speaker 1: can be very easily misused when it's not done properly. Yeah,
31:17
Speaker 1: so I think it should be agreed, So, Chuck, there
31:21
Speaker 1: is a very famous police dog that you may have
31:24
Speaker 1: heard of. Rentintin, that's right, was a German dog who
31:28
Speaker 1: fought who fought for the Kaiser in World War One.
31:32
Speaker 1: But then the guys who were UM, the unit he
31:35
Speaker 1: was a member of, abandoned him. So an Americans said, hey, boot,
31:39
Speaker 1: come over here, and Rentintin followed him and ended up
31:41
Speaker 1: becoming a movie star in the United States. About that,
31:44
Speaker 1: did you know that? I did not know that. I
31:47
Speaker 1: mean I knew about Rentintin, but I had no idea
31:49
Speaker 1: that he was a service dog. Yeah, pretty neat. So
31:52
Speaker 1: there are actually, um, there's a group called the Connecticut
31:56
Speaker 1: Police Work Dog Association and they are involved in honoring
32:01
Speaker 1: and tracking UM police dogs who have died in the
32:04
Speaker 1: line of duty. And a surprising and very disturbing number
32:08
Speaker 1: of police dogs die in the line of duty because
32:11
Speaker 1: they're left in hot cars and forgotten about what in Uh.
32:16
Speaker 1: Since nineteen forty two thousand dogs police dogs have died
32:20
Speaker 1: in the line of duty. Um, and then since two
32:24
Speaker 1: thousand seven, twenty nine have died from being left in
32:27
Speaker 1: sweltering cars. Cow. Yeah. And the reason why is because
32:32
Speaker 1: there are um special compartments for them to ride in. Ye. Yeah,
32:39
Speaker 1: that aren't necessarily air conditioned. Yeah, they need to outfit
32:44
Speaker 1: those since then, yeah, that's that should not happen. It's
32:50
Speaker 1: two thousand seven. That shouldn't happen once because it's easily preventable.
32:55
Speaker 1: It surious. You got anything else? I got nothing else,
32:57
Speaker 1: and this one was chuck full of stacks sets, random
33:01
Speaker 1: lots of stuff. I was surprised when I first saw
33:05
Speaker 1: police dogs. I was like, okay, and it was very
33:08
Speaker 1: much more complex and interesting issue than I initially assumed
33:12
Speaker 1: it would be. If you see a police dog, do
33:15
Speaker 1: you not go up and pet it? Um? It's working,
33:18
Speaker 1: especially if you have drugs on your person. That's right. Uh.
33:23
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about police dogs, you
33:25
Speaker 1: can type those words into the search bar at house
33:27
Speaker 1: to works dot com. And since I said search bar,
33:29
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mayo, I'm gonna call this meat pigeon. Hey, guys,
33:37
Speaker 1: have been hooked on your podcast since the first episode
33:40
Speaker 1: I listened to. I've been hooked on meat pigeons even long.
33:43
Speaker 1: I never thought I'd have anything worth writing in about,
33:45
Speaker 1: but when I saw two day's episode about pigeons, seemed
33:48
Speaker 1: too coincidental not to This past weekend, I received a
33:51
Speaker 1: random text from my boss asking if I wanted a pigeon.
33:54
Speaker 1: It's not as odd as you would think, because I
33:56
Speaker 1: work in a pet store not known for being an
33:58
Speaker 1: animal lover, animal loving vegan with an affinity for birds.
34:03
Speaker 1: As it turns out in sumter, South Carolina, wear my
34:05
Speaker 1: boss that's as a pigeon processing plant where they raise
34:09
Speaker 1: utility pigeons for meat and research. My boss were easily
34:13
Speaker 1: caught a lucky escape ee as he bathed in the sprinkler,
34:16
Speaker 1: unaware that he's being stalked by a resident cat. So
34:18
Speaker 1: after a few days of rooming with William the dub
34:21
Speaker 1: I took home when it was abandoned at my work.
34:22
Speaker 1: The pigeon now as a coop to call his own,
34:26
Speaker 1: replacing his temporary name of meat. Pigeon is a proper name, Ramsey's.
34:31
Speaker 1: I guess William was thin her boss. I'm a little confused. Yeah,
34:36
Speaker 1: the introduction of the name Ramsey's makes me think you're
34:38
Speaker 1: probably right, unless her boss's name Ramsey's. No, no, No.
34:41
Speaker 1: The pigeons the namy gave himself when he became manager.
34:45
Speaker 1: It's a tribute to Ramsey's, the third in pigeon history,
34:47
Speaker 1: but has consequently led to my husband and I frequently
34:50
Speaker 1: singing Nacho libra quotes too poor Ramsey's. I don't remember
34:55
Speaker 1: Ramsey's and Nacho libre, do you. I didn't see that.
34:57
Speaker 1: They didn't know it's cute. The next step is to
35:00
Speaker 1: seek out some pigeon companionship for Ramsey's. Thank you so
35:06
Speaker 1: much for the greatest podcast ever. I'm hoping there will
35:08
Speaker 1: be a southeast toward you will past to Columbia, South Carolina.
35:11
Speaker 1: Maybe you might just have to drive to Atlanta. Let's
35:15
Speaker 1: not do it. And that is from bree Uh Bagnal
35:19
Speaker 1: in Columbia and she sending pictures of Ramsey's in the coop.
35:23
Speaker 1: He is one cute pigeon. Yeah there are Yeah, he's cute.
35:27
Speaker 1: There are some cute pigeons out there. I learned, as
35:29
Speaker 1: long as they're not carrier pigeons usually fairly cute. That wattle. Uh.
35:34
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us and
35:36
Speaker 1: tell us your amazing story about whatever, you can tweet
35:39
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35:45
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35:47
Speaker 1: how Stuff works dot com and has always joined us
35:49
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35:51
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35:59
Speaker 1: topics because how stuff works dot com. Hm hm