# What a shame! Dogs out of a job



## Thecowboysgirl (Nov 30, 2006)

https://www.yahoo.com/news/marijuana-legalization-prompting-police-k-122343074.html



I never thought of this. Apparently they are going to have to retire drug dogs who will also alert to marijuana now that it is legal in so many places? I don't care one way or the other about legalizing pot, not meaning to discuss that.

Just a shame for these working dogs, what will happen to them?


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## David Winners (Apr 30, 2012)

This has been happening for a while. Most the dogs are retired to their handler. That is the case in my town.


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## LuvShepherds (May 27, 2012)

Can they be retrained to find illegal drugs?


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## Fodder (Oct 21, 2007)

LuvShepherds said:


> Can they be retrained to find illegal drugs?


_The dogs trained on multiple drugs alert in the same way for all of them, so it's impossible to tell whether they are indicating the presence of marijuana or an illicit drug. The dogs also cannot distinguish between a small, legal amount of marijuana or a larger, still-illegal amount of the drug. For police, that means they can no longer be used to establish probable cause for a search._


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

In some U.S. cities, retired K9s are auctioned off as "excess property" with untreated medical problems, and/or dumped in city pound.


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## Jenny720 (Nov 21, 2014)

It is a shame. I would think those detection dogs can make good sar dogs. The dogs that are dual purpose dogs I would imagine still have a job.


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## Sabis mom (Mar 20, 2014)

Realistically a good number of police K9's are dual purpose so they will still work. Also a dog only works for at best 7-8 years, and in too many cases only 4-5. This will phase out, new dogs will be trained without that odor. It's a bump in the road. As David said what I am seeing is most being retired with their handlers. It sucks for the smaller departments who have less budget, but in most cases their dogs are dual purpose anyway.


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## NadDog24 (May 14, 2020)

The department my dad and Chief work for had to retire their drug dog because of this. He lives with one of my relatives now and is very spoiled. It is a shame so many lost their jobs


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## David Winners (Apr 30, 2012)

LuvShepherds said:


> Can they be retrained to find illegal drugs?


I have successfully done this and offered to train the local dogs but the administration didn't want the liability. If a dog indicates and you thrash a vehicle looking for illegal substances and you find none, the department is liable for damages.


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## David Winners (Apr 30, 2012)

Sabis mom said:


> Realistically a good number of police K9's are dual purpose so they will still work. Also a dog only works for at best 7-8 years, and in too many cases only 4-5. This will phase out, new dogs will be trained without that odor. It's a bump in the road. As David said what I am seeing is most being retired with their handlers. It sucks for the smaller departments who have less budget, but in most cases their dogs are dual purpose anyway.


The problem is compounded because demand has outpaced supply and prices are reflecting the shortage.

Most small departments won't keep a dog just for patrol and tracking. It's not in the budget. They don't generate funds like a narc dog. Any cash found goes to the department.


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## Bearshandler (Aug 29, 2019)

David Winners said:


> I have successfully done this and offered to train the local dogs but the administration didn't want the liability. If a dog indicates and you thrash a vehicle looking for illegal substances and you find none, the department is liable for damages.


One of the funnier things I found on the VLK website was people asking how often they need to proof their dogs off of marijuana when they were never trained to indicate it in the first place.


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## David Winners (Apr 30, 2012)

Bearshandler said:


> One of the funnier things I found on the VLK website was people asking how often they need to proof their dogs off of marijuana when they were never trained to indicate it in the first place.


In all honesty, how many drug runners do you suppose smoke pot?

If handlers pay their dogs for street finds, they will get imprinted.


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## Bearshandler (Aug 29, 2019)

David Winners said:


> In all honesty, how many drug runners do you suppose smoke pot?


All of them, or 99.9%. 


David Winners said:


> If handlers pay their dogs for street finds, they will get imprinted.


I guess that goes back to what you said about only rewarding your dog in a known hide after. Is that the standard practice? I guess that’s a question for the next time I talk to the detection guys around here.


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## Sabis mom (Mar 20, 2014)

David Winners said:


> The problem is compounded because demand has outpaced supply and prices are reflecting the shortage.
> 
> Most small departments won't keep a dog just for patrol and tracking. It's not in the budget. They don't generate funds like a narc dog. Any cash found goes to the department.


I understand that, and I feel for some of the smaller departments who may well lose their dogs altogether. My point was that this problem is fixable to a degree and in a reasonable time. If the smaller departments can hang on. The prices are problematic. The incidental imprinting on pot should be a fixable problem. Coffee was used for years to try and mask drug odor and if the dogs had imprinted on that half the planet would be getting busted. 
Sabi would have been bummed if she was still around. Her reward for detection was food and pot is plentiful!


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## David Winners (Apr 30, 2012)

Bearshandler said:


> All of them, or 99.9%.
> 
> I guess that goes back to what you said about only rewarding your dog in a known hide after. Is that the standard practice? I guess that’s a question for the next time I talk to the detection guys around here.


It is standard practice to only pay on known hides at VLK. We always carried a drop hide for this purpose. What handlers do to screw up their dogs is another matter entirely.


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## David Winners (Apr 30, 2012)

Sabis mom said:


> I understand that, and I feel for some of the smaller departments who may well lose their dogs altogether. My point was that this problem is fixable to a degree and in a reasonable time. If the smaller departments can hang on. The prices are problematic. The incidental imprinting on pot should be a fixable problem. Coffee was used for years to try and mask drug odor and if the dogs had imprinted on that half the planet would be getting busted.
> Sabi would have been bummed if she was still around. Her reward for detection was food and pot is plentiful!


The incidental imprinting shouldn't happen in the first place, but it is an easy fix if there had only been a few rewards.

Re training a dog that has been rewarded for years for pot, and then proofing and maintaining that training... That's definitely more involved. Plus there is the propensity for lawyers to attack training records. When you lose the credibility of the dog, you lose probable cause and the rest of the case.


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## Muskeg (Jun 15, 2012)

Kind of unrelated, but now that "pot" is legal in nearby states, two times this spring dogs I know well (one my own) ingested human feces containing THC (edibles) while hiking in the National Forest. As a result both were nearly rushed to an e-vet, but my local vet responded to my call and diagnosed my dog (sure enough, she was fine after a night), and I was able to help my friend avoid the e-vet with his pup after he told me the history (she'd been sniffing around someone's campsite). 

So I don't care if marijuana is responsibly consumed (no driving!!)- but people really need to be cleaner at campsites and near trails. Gross as it is, dogs scarf the stuff down fast (even on leash). It's just YUCK! And something to be aware of if you hike your dog.


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## Lexie’s mom (Oct 27, 2019)

Can you tell what their symptoms were?


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## David Winners (Apr 30, 2012)

Wobbly, low temp, nervous.


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## Slamdunc (Dec 6, 2007)

Magwart said:


> In some U.S. cities, retired K9s are auctioned off as "excess property" with untreated medical problems, and/or dumped in city pound.


I would like to know which US city "auctions" retired dogs off as "excess property?" Also, they are not dropped or dumped in a city pound, this is simply not true.


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## Sunsilver (Apr 8, 2014)

Eska's sire was trained for drugs, tracking and article retrieval. The police department that bought him decided they no longer needed a dog, and were going to sell him off, and not necessarily to another police department, either. Fortunately, someone told the breeder, and they got a very sharp reminder from her of the contract they signed that said the dog was to be RETURNED if they no longer had a use for it!

Guess I never would have got my pup if that hadn't happened!


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

@Slamdunc -- I'm not making it up. I'll send you a PM with department, and details. What happened to that K9 that I know of in a pound was so stinking unfair.


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## koldobrew (7 mo ago)

Yes, we can assume that these dogs will really just be retired. Is it good? I can hardly tell you anything for sure. But if the idea of full legalization turns out to be really true, then these poor dogs will not be needed in vain. I am sure that they will organize a cool send-off and will be honored. And the best of them will even be hung on the honor roll, LOL. By the way, as for legalization. I'm thinking of ordering oil using stateofmindlabs.com . Is it legal? It will be interesting to find out.


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## David Winners (Apr 30, 2012)

Slamdunc said:


> I would like to know which US city "auctions" retired dogs off as "excess property?" Also, they are not dropped or dumped in a city pound, this is simply not true.


I know this is circumstantial at best.

I met 2 Dutch Shepherds in Florida at dog parks. Neither owner knew what breed they were. They both came from the local shelter. Both dogs responded to Dutch commands, including "go suk" , which leads me to believe that they were at least in the working dog pipeline at some point.

All this could be explained by them having a previous owner that was a handler, or a dog enthusiast that looked up Dutch commands to be cool, or an imported green dog...


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## Sabis mom (Mar 20, 2014)

David Winners said:


> I know this is circumstantial at best.
> 
> I met 2 Dutch Shepherds in Florida at dog parks. Neither owner knew what breed they were. They both came from the local shelter. Both dogs responded to Dutch commands, including "go suk" , which leads me to believe that they were at least in the working dog pipeline at some point.
> 
> All this could be explained by them having a previous owner that was a handler, or a dog enthusiast that looked up Dutch commands to be cool, or an imported green dog...


I will choose to be optimistic.


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## Slamdunc (Dec 6, 2007)

We have 8 dogs in our K9 unit, one in the Sheriff Dept and one in our Vice and Narcotics unit. The Sheriff's Dept and the V&N dogs, I trained last year. Passive alert and courier narcotics dogs. The Sheriffs Dept dog is a Dutch Shepherd, that I also trained to track / trail for missing persons. They are not trained on weed as we had a genius Gov Northam that decided to legalize it, which is ok. However, until 2024 there is no legal place to buy it. Drug dealers are doing great, they are the only place to get it. More weed sold, more money, more guns and guess what more robberies, shootings and homicides over Marijuana, the "harmless drug".

We still have 5 dogs in our K9 unit that are trained on weed, they have not retired. They are dual purpose dogs and Patrol work is their primary function. They are still used for narcotics searches where they are not the Probable Cause for the search. For example we can use those dogs for school searches, jail searches and narcotics search warrants. Two of those dogs will be retired this year for age and the new dogs will not be trained on marijuana. 

It's funny, I thought with a dog that was not trained to alert to marijuana my drug seizures would go down. Well, I am getting alerts on cars every day and seizing a lot of Meth, Heroin and coke. The three dogs we currently have trained on meth, coke and heroin have tripled the seizures of 8 dogs in 2017 from Jan - May of this year. I did the stats for a presentation / demo I did yesterday. Kinda eye opening to me. Not too mention the amount of fentanyl we are recovering. 

I know many people think that Marijuana is a harmless drug. Many pot smokers (who smoke to get high / stoned) think they drive better or it's ok to drive when high???? Our fatal accidents are up significantly which marijuana smokers. The combination of alcohol and marijuana is extremely dangerous when driving. We have shifted to DUI arrests for those high on marijuana. Also, Marijuana is far more potent than it was 10 years ago causing a psychosis in chronic users. Almost every mass shooter, shooter under 21 was a chronic marijuana user. Look at Uvalde, Parkland, Aurora theater shooting, and others. I'm not convinced that Marijuana is as harmless as people think, based on my experiences. I will get off my soap box now.


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## dogma13 (Mar 8, 2014)

That is very interesting Slamdunc,thanks for sharing your experience.


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## gonzales (12 mo ago)

Slamdunc said:


> Marijuana is far more potent than it was 10 years ago causing a psychosis in chronic users. Almost every mass shooter, shooter under 21 was a chronic marijuana user. Look at Uvalde, Parkland, Aurora theater shooting, and others. I'm not convinced that Marijuana is as harmless as people think, based on my experiences. I will get off my soap box now.


Sounds like a page straight out of reefer madness lol. You do realize fox news isn't a reliable source of information 

I don't know anyone who says cannabis is harmless. But equating cannabis use to mass shootings is beyond ridiculous.

This idea that marijuana was more potent 10 years ago is nothing but fear mongering from people who have no idea what they are talking about. And you say it causing psychosis too lol. 

Correlation is not causation.




Slamdunc said:


> However, until 2024 there is no legal place to buy it. Drug dealers are doing great, they are the only place to get it.


The last I checked you can grow four plants per household, in Virginia, like they can in Canada.


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## dogma13 (Mar 8, 2014)

@gonzales please be so kind to share your credentials,life experience, and expertise.


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## Slamdunc (Dec 6, 2007)

@gonzales I suppose your right, "The view", CNN, MSNBC always get it right. You are free to disagree to me. I figured my post would upset some folks. I've interviewed literally hundreds, probably well over a thousand drugs users and have made hundreds of arrests involving narcotics, and that is a very low estimate. It is a fact that Marijuana is far more potent with much higher levels of THC now than years ago. I know facts will not suit the beliefs of the left wing agenda but it is true. 

Yes, you can grow 4 plants in Virginia. However, there is no legal place to buy seeds where I am. There is also no legal place to buy plants, a bit of a conundrum. 

No fear mongering here, it is the reality of what I see and respond to on a daily basis. I would be fine with the legalization of Marijuana if it was being done with a thoughtful plan. Not a knee jerk reaction by some politicians to try and hold onto their seats. If they had implemented a legal way for citizens to safely buy it, education and some better laws....Well, I'd be all for it. The way it has been done in VA is very poor and many are paying a price for that poor leadership and poor decision making.


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## Bearshandler (Aug 29, 2019)

Slamdunc said:


> We have 8 dogs in our K9 unit, one in the Sheriff Dept and one in our Vice and Narcotics unit. The Sheriff's Dept and the V&N dogs, I trained last year. Passive alert and courier narcotics dogs. The Sheriffs Dept dog is a Dutch Shepherd, that I also trained to track / trail for missing persons. They are not trained on weed as we had a genius Gov Northam that decided to legalize it, which is ok. However, until 2024 there is no legal place to buy it. Drug dealers are doing great, they are the only place to get it. More weed sold, more money, more guns and guess what more robberies, shootings and homicides over Marijuana, the "harmless drug".
> 
> We still have 5 dogs in our K9 unit that are trained on weed, they have not retired. They are dual purpose dogs and Patrol work is their primary function. They are still used for narcotics searches where they are not the Probable Cause for the search. For example we can use those dogs for school searches, jail searches and narcotics search warrants. Two of those dogs will be retired this year for age and the new dogs will not be trained on marijuana.
> 
> ...


I wouldn’t say marijuana is harmless. That’s a gross overstatement about almost any drug or substance. At one point asbestos was hailed as a wonder material for just about anything. I will say marijuana is far less dangerous and at best equal to other recreational drugs like alcohol and cigarettes. If you’re saying that you pull more people over for dui while using marijuana than alcohol, I’d love to see the numbers. I’d hazard a guess that drug dealer are doing the same as they always have. If you’re complaint is the execution by Virginia, then that’s an entirely separate conversation. I’m not familiar with the overall workings of that state. I spent my 10 year military career trying to avoid that place at all costs. I don’t plan on moving there now, either.


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## dogma13 (Mar 8, 2014)

I'm thinking we should stop sliding into political discussion. We're teetering on the edge now.


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