Module 2 - Law Enforcement Equipment and Police Canines

Constable Bruce Edwards and Police Service Dog Wizard, Edmonton Police Service - Image Source: Edmonton Police Service In 1999, a police service dog named Breston, working for the Cheektowaga Police Department in Cheektowaga, New York, sniffed out $3.4 million dollars worth of drugs. Breston, a Belgian Malinois, was able to smell the marijuana despite it being heat-sealed in Mylar plastic bags inside plastic-lined crates sealed with foam sealant inside a closed storage garage.

The primary function of the Police Canine Unit is to provide support to patrol officers on the street. Police canines and their handlers respond to crimes in progress where suspects are fleeing on foot or possibly hiding. Dogs are also used by police to track missing persons or to find hidden drugs or explosives.

Unique Physiological Abilities of Dogs

Dogs have several unique physiological qualities that make them valuable assets to police agencies worldwide.

A dog can be trained to use its sense of smell to identify individual people, drugs, explosives, or weapons. In addition, a dog's sense of smell is discriminating in that the dog is able to identify a specific scent even when many other scents are present. Drug smugglers have often tried to fool drug-sniffing dogs by wrapping drugs in materials soaked with perfume or putting the drugs in boxes filled with mothballs. However, well-trained drug detection dogs still find the drugs despite these devious efforts.

A dog’s olfactory system or sense of smell is 50 times more sensitive than a human’s is. A dog’s nose has approximately 200 million specialized scent-receptor cells called olfactory sensory receptors, but a human's nose has only about 5 million of these. Olfactory receptors are embedded in the special membrane in the nose called the olfactory epithelium. The human nose has an average of 16 cm² of olfactory epithelium, but a dog’s nose has an average of 150 cm². After molecules of airborne odours dissolve in the mucous layer covering the olfactory epithelium, they stimulate olfactory sensory receptors that, in turn, trigger an electrical impulse in sensory neurons. These neurons send messages to the cerebrum for interpretation. The area of a dog's brain that interprets olfaction or smell is 15 times larger than that of a human.

Police service dogs can apprehend a criminal suspect who flees or subdue a suspect who is exhibiting violent behaviour. They can do this because they can run faster than most humans and because they can use their powerful jaws to clamp onto a suspect.

Another asset of police service dogs is their loud barking which can be very intimidating to most individuals. Some suspects voluntarily stop running or being aggressive when they see or hear a police service dog.