[Dog barking]
Jeff Gabel: Well we train dogs to deploy on the borders at ports of entry.
We do airports, sea ports, the dogs are detection dogs
so they'll work either narcotics or currency and firearms.
We train supervisors and canine officers.
They'll come to the training center for two weeks
and get put through a battery of classes where they'll learn to handle the dog.
Dogs are a pack animal.
They want to please their pack master, that being the handler,
so the dogs are conditioned to make that handler happy.
That dog works for that handler's verbal and physical praise along with his reward.
That's why it's so important for the dog to think that that reward is actually coming from the odor.
Dogs will detect just about anything you want to train them on.
The overall dog has to pass certain checks and edits,
and once the dog passes that we make sure that the pairing's proper.
We take a good look at the dog for about five to seven weeks prior to the handlers ever showing up,
get the dog all pre-trained, and then we pair the dogs accordingly to what port they're going to,
what the workload is going to be, what they're priorities are going to be.
It's our job as an instructor to foster that handler and get him up at the level he needs to be at.
We have luggage belts on site, we have a vehicle pad on site,
so we'll do the initial phases on site and then we'll take them into a real world environment.
We'll go to warehouses, we'll go to the airport,
we put the dog in the most realistic situation as possible.
Run the cars, beep the horns, background noises, people moving, luggage carousels turning,
a lot of activity so the dog, the first time he experiences that is not in the field.
Still can't beat the dog, that's one thing, that's job security.
For the last 20 years, we're always told
"One day, somebody's going to build a dog nose."
They haven't done it yet. There is no replacing the dog's nose.