aw cute little sniffer doggie

pwd

I went to the USA last month. In the airport while going through security, there was a woman standing beside the queue with a beagle. She called me over and asked me to let the dog sniff my bag. He was very interested in it and even started to try to dig at it a bit with his paws. I didn't have anything illegal in my bag, so my reaction was kinda -aw that's such a cute dog.

The handler asked me if I had any food or anything in my bag. I said I might have and took out a bag of crisps, and said there might be chocolate in it too. She told me to go on, and told the dog to leave my bag alone.

So I was wondering why the sniffer dog's interest didn't lead to a deeper investigation. Do they have a specific signal they use when they find contraband? Or was it just that my reaction was clearly not one of someone who was actually carrying contraband?

dudara

The dog might be trained to give different signals perhaps? And as you mentioned, customs/security people are trained to read people's reactions.

olaola

The usual trained response is that the dog will sit calmy beside you with their nose on you, or the bag. So the little fella probably just wanted your chocolate! Time to get worried when you think they're sitting and waiting for you to pet them

scout353

The US customs have a sniffer dog that is trained to determine fruit which is not not allowed in US. Was in Philly airport and woman with dog arrived and the dog picked up a lot of scents - people had apples and bananas ! Customs officer then wrote on customs form and they had to go to another officer with it - don't know if they were fined or not but it was serious issue!

benj

Maybe she was just some random mad woman walking around the airport with a dog...heard there's a few there