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