A nose for foes

The next time you fly, take a peek at your luggage after it tumbles down the chute at the baggage claim. You may find a fresh paw print or two. That's because teams of dogs are standing watch at many airports, helping to keep you safe.

Take Lenny, for instance. He's a black Labrador retriever on duty at Boston's Logan International Airport. Lenny is one of 174 bomb-sniffing dogs nationwide.

The Federal Aviation Administration's bomb dogs are on duty at 39 airports. The dogs sniff unattended suitcases and suspicious packages, nose vehicles left at the curb, search terminals after bomb threats, check passenger areas and parking garages, and scour aircraft.

Until recently, you could see neither hide nor hair of these dogs. Some thought canine units would spook passengers. But in the wake of the terrorist attacks last month, the FAA plans to step up dog patrols throughout the country.

"Even before the attacks," says the FAA's Dave Kontny, "we had planned on expanding the program, but this has just accelerated the process." Mr. Kontny is the manager of the agency's canine and explosives program. The FAA is speeding up the dog training and adding classes so that new handlers and dogs can be sent quickly to airports.

Over the next year, the FAA plans to add 25 more airports and 100 more teams, each composed of a dog and a handler. Soon, you'll see more and more of these dog teams sniffing their way through airport concourses.

The program began in 1972. On March 9 that year, an anonymous caller said a bomb had been planted on a TWA airliner bound for Los Angeles from New York. The jet quickly returned to New York, where passengers and crew were evacuated. New York Port Authority Police brought in a bomb-sniffing German shepherd named Brandy to search the airplane. She found the bomb 12 minutes before it was set to explode.

All trained in Texas

Later that same day, President Richard Nixon ordered the FAA to use "innovative means" to combat such threats. Six months later, the FAA's Explosives Detection Canine Team Program was born.

Handlers and dogs are all trained at the Defense Department's Military Working Dog School at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas.

Lackland's 341st Training Squadron is the largest dog-training center in the world. Annually, the school instructs 550 handlers and 190 dogs for all branches of the military and the FAA. The daily kennel population is about 350 dogs, which eat 300 pounds of kibble a day.

The handlers are police officers with an average of five years' experience on the street. At the most recent class, officers came from the Memphis International Airport Police, Denver International Airport Police, and Miami-Dade Police department. (The teams work for their respective police departments. The FAA pays to train canine and handler.)

The school buys dogs that are from 1 to 2 years old. Before the dogs are accepted into the program, trainers spend weeks checking the dogs' health, their willingness to work, knowledge of basic commands, and ability to detect a "target scent" (in this case, gunpowder).

The FAA prefers sporting breeds - Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers, and Chesapeake Bay retrievers - for their intelligence, good dispositions, and gentle looks. They also use German shepherds and their close cousin, the Belgian Malinois (MAL-ih-nwah), which look like short-haired German shepherds.

Airport canines must be kid-friendly

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