Home-Grown Bomb Sniffers

(This blog originally posted on 9/16/2006)

This article reports that the LAPD is starting to breed it's own bomb-sniffing
dogs.

Why?

Because since 9/11 the demand for good security dogs has sky rocketed and along with it the price. Demand is so great, that agencies are having trouble affording the best dogs which generally come from Europe.

That's kind of the significance of this story. Police and security agencies get good working dogs from foreign countries. Not the USA. Despite all the protestations that AKC show breeders are the most responsible, and their breed club members breed the best dogs, the LAPD is forced to breed their own to get something on par with the quality they are used to. Quality that comes from somewhere outside the showring stronghold.