When Max and Power enter FBI Headquarters, their mission is to ensure the safety of everyone in the vicinity by searching for any potentially deadly explosives.  Max and Power are a team; Max is an officer and Power is a 5-year-old black Labrador Retriever and a K-9 Explosive Detector trained to detect roughly 19,000 different components that make up explosives.  If he detects anything, Power indicates this by sitting.

Disco, a 6-year-old yellow Labrador Retriever, works in the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office with handler Special Agent Kathleen Carson. Disco is kept quite busy attending The Academy Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Emmy Awards, Olympics, Super Bowl and other local events that need to be screened for the public’s safety. 

Worst case scenario, a detection team finds a bomb, quickly setting the wheels in motion to safely disarm it.  Best case scenario, they provide confirmation (and with it, peace of mind) that there is no bomb.  Either way, these partners enter with no guarantee of the outcome, bravely working to ensure the safety of others.

While no one wants to imagine a bomb in the building or vicinity, the reality is that bombs exist and unfortunately dangerous people do use them to intimidate and harm others.  Removing a found bomb is imperative of course, but nothing can be done without first detecting and finding the bomb.  Bomb-sniffing dogs, or bomb dogs, are one of the best defenses, and a preferred recourse to quickly and reliably establish whether there is indeed a bomb. 

Buildings, large and small, methods of transportation (cars, trucks, boats, trains, planes), entertainment venues, public and private centers, with historical or religious significance, densely populated or isolated locations are all vulnerable, and are all able to be thoroughly searched for a potential threat by a bomb dog and a handler, or a team of dogs and their handlers. 

To be certified as a bomb dog, training is rigorous.  It starts early, with a dog first screened for the right temperament.  Where service dogs that aid vision- or hearing-impaired individuals and people with physical disabilities must be extremely calm, a bomb dog is trained off of a natural impulse of playfulness and energy.  For a bomb dog, searching for and detecting explosives is a game, and one they eagerly play with a drive and stamina not easily matched.

At Work Dogs International, a private company that trains dogs, dog and handler teams, and provides detection services, the dogs are screened for temperament, which must be friendly and outgoing, and a strong hunting instinct.  With those characteristics in place, it is a matter of training the dog how to work with a handler to follow the appropriate commands necessary in the field, and what exactly it is they are supposed to hunt for. 

Then, constant training is required to reinforce exposure to and familiarity with the numerous chemicals and materials related to explosives, since field work does not necessarily provide daily exposure to these materials.

At Work Dogs International, handlers and dogs are trained on-sight in California at a 10-acre ranch where they can recreate realistic situations “in hope that mistakes are made in training and not on the street.” Their site boasts of rigorous testing that illustrates the experience a dog in this line of work might possess, to safeguard themselves as well as ensure the safety of those they work to protect.  “We test our bomb dogs in a variety of locations with a number of trainers so they will learn to follow exact orders under any circumstance.

For investigation teams, police units and security forces in charge of bomb detection, the bomb-sniffing dog is often the crucial field asset for mission success and survival. Therefore, our bomb detection dogs have been prepared for all scenarios through the Work Dogs International 600 hour Explosive Detection Course. Only the best are certified as official bomb dogs.”

It’s scary to think about bombs, and sometimes seeing a bomb dog is unnerving, as it is a reminder of the potential threat, but there is also a deterrent value to the visibility of a bomb dog.  Their presence serves as a reminder that we have a wonderful ally against violence.

Do you work with a Bomb Dog? Tell us your stories. Go to my.petside.com and post a message.

To read the next part of the Animal Jobs Series, click on the links below.

Animal Jobs Series: Therapy Dogs

Animal Jobs Series: Rescue Dogs

Animal Jobs Series: Guide Dogs

Want to learn more about the Breeds used? Check out our Breed Profiles!