The Publicity Hound
(The Most Dangerous Dog)
By: John William Grima
2009
We have all read the news articles regarding Search and Rescue and other Detection Dog handlers, being charged and convicted of Fraud and other crimes. Let’s see now, oh yes, the Michigan woman, for planting evidence. This compromised several prominent investigations, gave false hope to numerous people and left egg on the faces of many reporters and television producers. Then there was the World Trade Centre hero, who defrauded FEMA while staying in a New York luxury hotel. He set up a trust fund for his poor tired old dog that eventually succumbed to the hazards of ground zero, when in fact the old dog wasn’t even a trained search dog.
Finally the president of a national detector dog organization for fraud. He put military lives in danger by selling untrained explosive detection dogs to the government for thousands of dollars. When these dogs were finally tested by experts, “they couldn’t find elephant droppings in a bird cage!”
These people are the ones that have been caught and convicted so far. These cases have given a black eye to the professional and unpaid professionals, who have legitimate well run, standardized programs. However they can be a blessing in disguise if we all learn by them.
It is the uneducated and assumption of expertise that these fraud artists rely on. The authorities and the media are the main targets of these individuals.
The purpose of this article, is to bring this discussion to the forefront and to provide some simple warning signs, so that with a minimum amount of due diligence these menaces will be exposed.
ONE PERSON SHOW
This is a dead giveaway. All good Search and Rescue teams are organized with a structure similarly run like a professional emergency service. They are mandated by the authorities to be utilized as a resource and consider themselves as “unpaid professionals” not volunteer searchers. They function as a team. In all the above noted fraud cases, all their publicity was geared to just the individual and their wonder dogs. To this day one can still find the articles on the internet and watch the television shows, profiling them and their dogs.
CERTIFICATION
Remember this statement. “Certification is only as good as the person or agency that is certifying”. Make sure the certification is authentic and not self serving. I certify all my students, based on my own qualifications and the above statement applies to me also. All good trainers and dog handlers will welcome and achieve certifications with many other agencies. This is a testament to their training and also allows them to work in multi jurisdictions.
For example; the dog team that is certified by the State of Florida cannot work in the state of New York under their standard. However if both teams are also certified by the United States Police Canine Association or North American Police Work Dog Association, they may be able to work across the U.S.A or even Canada. I know these are police agencies and most unpaid professionals are civilians, however, there are plenty of police run standards out there for civilians to certify in. If the team is not certified by a credible police or government agency, it is because they can’t do it!
Finally consider this. There are numerous dog teams out there, still working that are certified, personally, by the aforementioned fraudsters, themselves. How good is their certification now?
SUPER SUCCESS
When I see or read about these teams, they have made some kind of find at every call out they have been to. Sure we all brag about our finds, I have done it myself, but a good dog handler will brag about how his dog worked more than his finds simply because they rarely find anything including the missing persons.
A dog is a tool and its value is not just finding a victim.
A team more than likely will find clues, evidence, direction of travel and finally more often clear a search area thus contributing to the possibility of detection report at the search end.
An actually find of a missing person is likely to be a once in a career experience!
SELF INVITATION
Every Search and Rescue has a protocol which should be followed. The authorities usually work in phases and there is a specific phase to call in the search group.
The publicity hound calls or shows up uninvited.
My search group was called to assist a Police Homicide unit in a body recovery. As we sat in the office the detective took a phone call from a certified graduate of one of these fraudsters. The detective put the call on speaker phone and we listened to this person bad mouth our group and say he was far more qualified. I have seen the media talking to the search commander. A car will pull up and the publicity hound and his wonder dog get out for a pee and the reporters stampede to get a picture. Later, on the news broadcast or paper they just blindly report it is a “POLICE SEARCH DOG” without even checking. Unpaid Professional Search and Rescue groups have a Memo of Understanding with the authorities and are mandated by policy which can be checked by calling the jurisdiction in charge.
At the World Trade Centre many dog teams just showed up that had no business or experience. The problem this created was that there were many professional teams waiting for a call to be utilized that never came because of the number of teams already on the pile.
Now what you have is a bunch of Search and Rescue dog teams that claim that they were there at the World Trade Centre which now gives them false credibility.
EXCUSES, EXCUSES
Either a dog works or it doesn’t.
A well trained search dog will spring into action with his nose down, tail wagging fast and can’t seem to suck in enough looking for air scent or cover ground fast enough.
Compare this behaviour with the dog that sniffs mouse holes, looks around at everything else, rolls and scratches and just goes for a walk. Then listen for the excuses. “This area is too contaminated!” “The wind isn’t right!” “Jupiter is not aligned with Mars!” Ask to see the dog work. Ask someone who knows and compare dogs. You don’t have to be a dog expert to know which dog is working and which one is just going for a walk.
TRAINING METHODS
The methods of training search dogs, is pretty standard throughout the world. This especially applies to detector dogs. There are only three basic principles. Detect odour, indicate odour and get the reward. Dogs can be trained to find numerous and different odours, however the indication will always be the same. An explosives Detection dog can indicated on up to 14 different odours, but will always indicate by sitting or some other passive indication.
If a Search and Rescue dog handler tells you his dog barks and indication for a live person and whimpers for a dead person or a Detection dog handler tells you his dog downs for explosives/weapons and sits for narcotics, please run away as fast as your legs can carry you. Think about the complexity of this type of training.
A drug dealer on his way to make a deal, with a 9mm handgun in one pocket and some methamphetamine in the other or a live victim lying on top of a dead person trapped in a collapsed structure, are two serious and possible scenarios.
Yes dogs are a valuable tool. Dogs can be taught a variety of amazing tasks. However they are simple animals that I cannot communicate with specifically, therefore, I do not want to depend on them to pick the proper indication in both of these potentially lethal situations.
These publicity hounds usually have training “Secrets” they will not share with anyone.
I was invited as a trainer to a seminar hosted by one of these fraudsters. I questioned the wonder dog’s capabilities. I asked if I could test the dog on a few scenarios. Well! This person flipped out and started to scold me in front of the students. The person was appalled and offended that I had the nerve to even ask. This person then reminded me of their publicity exploits and it was clear from all this exposure that they had to answer to nobody and demanded an apology for even suggesting it.
Good trainers are not afraid to share their knowledge with anyone.
They will not hesitate to challenge their dogs or test them. Good trainers welcome mistakes because it gives them an excuse to train.
BILLBOARD CANINES
I attended a Search and Rescue Dog seminar with two of my students just to see how our training faired with other standards. The instructor asked all the teams to group into beginners, intermediate and advanced. Out of about 20 teams, my two students went to intermediate. The rest of the group went to the advanced. I told my handlers that I didn’t believe any of those teams were advanced and after evaluations our members were moved up to advanced and the others had been bumped down to beginners.
They later asked me how I had known. I wanted to impress them with some wise sage guru type skill that I possessed but I simply told them that all the other teams had outfitted themselves and their dogs with waterproof camouflaged, vests, patches and other SAR decorated badges, of the brightest and reflective colours so that I thought I was in the pit lanes with a bunch of sponsored NASCAR racing drivers.
Real trained dogs don’t wear all that get up because it’s not practical and can be dangerous on a rubble pile or in the woods. Publicity hounds want to bring all the attention to them and away from the fact that the dog is not trained.
This stems from the fact that these people have a dog and gosh darn it they are going to use “Fifi” for Search and Rescue come hell or high water (no pun intended).
They won’t go and get a suitable dog and train it properly because they don’t care about saving peoples’ lives. They simply want to belong to an egotistical social club.
CHECK IT OUT
Wise old saying, “When you shine a light…The Diamonds will sparkle and the Cockroaches will run”. Ask around do some legwork. In every one of the cases mentioned in the first paragraph, there were people who had already exposed the fraudsters long before they were charged. The whistles were blown but nobody wanted to hear them.
Another wise old saying; where there is smoke there is fire.
John William Grima is a retired Police Dog Trainer and handler for the largest Municipal Police Service in Canada and former Agriculture Detection Dog handler with the Canadian Government.
He now handles a Human Remains Detection Dog for the Ontario Volunteer Emergency Response Team.