[Fat Albert]

Hello y'all

I'm not too sure about this, and I've been wondering for quite some time. Are all K9s drug dogs? Usually one sees a German Shepherd taking down a suspect, while black labs, spaniels, etc. are used for drugs/illegal agriculture at the airport, etc.

Does anybody know?

Cheers!
Fat A

im pretty sure they all have some form of drug training, or else they would just be police muscle

police dogs are trained for the task needed ,its far to exspensive to train all dogs to sniff out drugs or bombs ,,i'm pretty sure airport dogs are trained for both though

well i guess in larger, more populated areas they would have many single purpose dogs but in the small towns i fell like dogs are trained to be dual purpose, they get new cars every year, who is to say they cant afford a little k9 drug training

[Vermonster]

yeah def not i walk by bomb sniffing dogs almost every night on my way home and i have never made one of them alert, and my clothes alone probably would be enough most of da time. I have asked though they are trained for specfic things, bombs, drugs, Counterfit DVD's! crazy huh. imagine if the dogs in the NYC subways could smell drugs, they would going wild all day and they would never get anything done.

[KharmaGirl]

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=67552

i've always heard they are trained to smell for one specific thing, cuz of the cost of training and years involved, just what i've always heard when i used to frequent juarez, hheehehe

[NiteTiger]

Narcotics dogs are usually trained for 4 distinct scents - Marijuana, Cocaine, Heroin, and (in my area) Methamphetamine.

Fugitive recovery dogs are trained to seek out fleeing fugitives and clear buildings.

Those two you may find trained together in one dog, but not at the same extent. And you're actually more likely to run into singly trained dogs in the sticks (usually fugitive) because of the time and expense it requires of the department. Officers are trained with their dogs from youngsters, and the officers have to be taught how to control the dogs and get certified themselves. That means you're paying full salary to the officer for at least 14 weeks without having him on the street. Dual purpose dogs can take even longer.

Explosive dogs are never trained to another smell - when they alert, the handler has to be damn sure of why the dog's going off.

Search and rescue are all together different.

i know in my area the k9 is both, he has chased people i know, and is also the go to for drug stops, busts etc.

[NiteTiger]

Yep, those two are trained together often. Usually has less scents on the drug end though. Expensive though... Your department must be stealing lots of property from us poor marijuana users