Dogs are used all the time to find drugs, for example at some airports. They are quite effective at it thanks to their amazing sense of smell, and training.
Such dogs are also used in some countries, particularly in the United States, to sniff for drugs during traffic stops where the cops suspect there might be some in the car.
Problem is: This is 100% prone to abuse in order to illegally search people's cars. (There is only one fetish that American cops have that's stronger than searching people's cars. And that is, of course, getting people's IDs. Of course during traffic stops they already got their ID fix, but nothing gets the party going like following that with an illegal search of the suspect's car.)
There are several studies that show that these police dogs are actually surprisingly ineffective and unreliable when it comes to smelling drugs from the outside of cars during traffic stops, with a significant amount of false positives and negatives.
However, that isn't the biggest problem with these canine units. Even if the dogs were 100% capable and competent, there is one much bigger flaw in the entire system: The human cop.
How is it determined whether the dog "alerted", in other words, signaled that it had smelled some drugs?
It's 100% on the estimation of the dog handler, the human police officer. His word is gospel in this situation. If he says that the dog "alerted", then that's it: That's the truth, period. It doesn't matter what the dog actually did, if its handler says that it "alerted" then that's it: That's the fact, and that gives them probable cause to search the car. On the handler's word alone, and nothing else.
It's easy to see how prone to abuse this is. Particularly because there's literally zero accountability. The word of the dog's handler is taken as is, and there is no corroboration process, no investigation process, nothing, in order to find out if the dog actually "alerted" or whether the cop is making it up. Nothing. It's his word, his word alone, and it's gospel.
And that's not all. When you watch these "walkarounds" that the canine units do to cars during traffic stops, they are highly suspicious.
One would think that they would do it like they do at airports, where they just walk with the dog along a line of luggage, or among people, as if they were just on a casual stroll, and if the dog smells something suspicious it will immediately go to the bag or the person where the smell is coming from.
Likewise one would think that a "walkaround" during American traffic stops would be the same: The cop just walks with the dog two or three times around the car, seeing if the dog sniffs something, and that's it.
Nope. That's not how it goes. Instead, the cop will keep tapping different parts of the car, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap... tap half a dozen times here, tap a half dozen times there... tap, tap tap... outright prompting the dog to sniff, to go there, to react. He is not just walking around seeing if the dog reacts. He is almost literally pushing the dog to react. Inducing, prodding, outright commanding the dog to sniff at every single spot on the car.
It's easy to see how over time a dog could learn a bad habit from that: The dog's handler is outright commanding it to sniff, to sniff, to sniff... and to react. And when the dog reacts, the handler rewards the dog with praises and petting.
I'm quite convinced that these dog handlers are doing it on purpose. They are doing their own "training" of the dog. To train them to "alert" on command. "Hey buddy, 'alert' on this spot. Come on, sniff here, react to it, indicate to me that you 'detected' something, come on, here, here."
And even if the dog doesn't happen to visibly "alert", well, as mentioned, he could just claim that it did, and it's his word and his word alone that matters.
The entire thing is nothing but a huge scam.
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