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The conference will open with an introductory session which will describe the issues that the lack of comprehensive or universal national standards has created. The conference will focus on needs assessment for national standards for canine detection work (concentrating on olfactory sensing), operational and legal issues.
Operational Issues Panel:
This panel will discuss the range of issues related to training, testing, test administrators/adjudicators, certification, certification sponsorship and credibility, training/testing maintenance and journal documentation, and recertification.
- Teresa MacPherson, chairperson of the FEMA Canine Subcommittee, has extensive history in the SAR arena.
- Mark Rispoli, JD, California Narcotic Canine Association and legal council of Scientific Group on Working Dog and Orthogonal Detection Guidelines (SWGDOG).
- Dr. Paul Waggoner, Auburn University, Alabama, will speak to research efforts ongoing.
Other issues to be discussed include:
- The full range of sensor or search dog types
- What are the current public and private certifications required for the various types of canine detection capabilities? Who, what is not covered?
- Do we need national standards for any or all types of canine scent detection?
- Would the creation of national standards risk lowering existing standards?
- How could we begin such a program? What would it look like?
Legal Issues Panel:
This panel will speak to forensics issues and court/trial cases. Many court cases are tossed because of the lack of credibility related to the dog search. The lack of national standards has also created poor quality training and lack of widespread certification acceptance.
Other issues to be discussed include:
- Should there be different national standards for each of the various canine scent detection capabilities?
- Should national certification standards be lower for purely non-forensic canine scent detection capabilities?
- Should there be a national database for the various canine scent detection assets?
- Should there be a national center for conducting certification training?
- And how does all this relate to the legal aspects of varying or lacking standards?
Final Panel:
The third and final panel will discuss the range of issues brought up in the breakout sessions and may include consensus building and recommendations for the future.
There will be several breakout sessions hosted by panel members, subject matter experts and program leaders and moderated by representatives from a variety of search dog interests. Session contents will be captured by recorders and presented to the whole group.
There are many topics/areas that could be discussed in this setting:
- What is the role of the canine in the detection of explosives and accelerants?
- What is the role of the canine in the detection of aliens at borders and airports?
- What is the role of the canine in the interdiction of narcotics, agriculture products, and illegal currency?
- What is the role of the canine in the location of survivors and/or human remains in urban disasters?
- A discussion of canine capabilities and multiple certifications.
- A discussion of dog team training requirements and standards.
- A discussion of certification testing requirements and standards.
- A discussion of training maintenance and operational use documentation.
- A discussion of requirements, standards, and certification of officials/judges.
- A discussion of certification and re-certification requirements and standards.
- What are the legal implications of standards, or the lack thereof, in canine-assisted search and seizure?
- Scent as forensic evidence and its relationship to the war on terrorism.
- Assessment of the reliability of scent identification in line-ups.
- Scientific testing of canine performance in scent detection: A spotlight on research programs.
- Breeding programs for canines used in law enforcement/disaster programs.
- A spotlight on ATF Training Center : teaching dogs to locate explosives, weapons and post-blast evidence.
- Spotlights on existing programs – governmental: FEMA's Disaster Search Canine Readiness Evaluation Program (DSCREP), TSA's Explosives Detection Canine Team Program, TSA's Customs and Border Patrol Canine Enforcement Training Center (CETC) and BORSTAR program, Humane Society's USUS Disaster Dog Program, etc.
- Spotlights on existing programs – private: Interquest Detection Canines (Debbie Farmer), K-9 Search & Detection, Inc., National Narcotic Detector Dog Association, etc.
- How the RCMP does it.
- Standards development: the ANSI process.
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