Some 30 bomb-sniffing dogs recently went through three days of testing at the Kentucky Expo Center in Louisville to make sure they are ready for real-world threats.
The regular National Odor Recognition Testing event is conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and certifies the working dogs’ ability to sniff out peroxide based and homemade explosives. In the above segment from WHAS-11, the instructors attached a GoPro to Vegas, an eager yellow lab on the hunt for pressure cooker bombs in a backpack.
Local, state, federal and military K9 teams came to the event to get advanced training that is often hard to come by, naming in imprinting on live smells they often don’t get a chance to work with.
“This training, the dogs are learning new explosive odors, some they already know, and this will translate when they go out to the field and if they come into contact with something that they have never had before but had here, then it’s a win-win for us at ATF,” said Cody Monday, lead instructor.
They can also be used for forensic work in locating not only explosives but also shell casings.
“The dogs can come out and locate evidence that is sometimes not able to be found by folks working the crime scenes,” Dan Neie, an ATF special agent canine handler, told WDRB. “They can use that evidence down the line for criminal prosecution.”
According to the U.S. Police Canine Association, the ATF will hold similar testing in California, New York, Hawaii, Minnesota, and Maryland throughout the summer.
More on NORT below directly from ATF.
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