INFOGRAPHIC: Things to Know About K9 Police Dogs

100-PO002 (P10/24/2016)

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Rescued: 100 percent of all narcotics dogs working at the Washington state prisons come from animal shelters.

Drug Busters: Washington State Department of Corrections’ narcotics dogs are trained to find heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, marijuana, spice, suboxone and tobacco. They can even be trained to find other contraband items like cell phones.

Super Sniffers: A dog’s nose is at least 10,000 times more acute than a human’s, making them excellent detectors for drugs.

For example, if a human were given a cup of coffee with a teaspoon of sugar, he/she might be able to smell it. A dog can smell a teaspoon of sugar in a million gallons of water!

Dogs can also search an area four times faster than any human.

Six to Eight: The number of years in the average law enforcement dog’s career. Sometimes they can fight crime for up to 10 years, but it’s rare.

German Shepherds were the first police dogs. They were used in World War I, World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam wars to detect explosives like land mines.

Sources

1. Smith, Ed. “22 Incredible Facts You Need to Know About K9 Police Dogs,” September 2016.
   https://www.instantcheckmate.com/crimewire/post/22-incredible-facts-you-need-to-know-about-k9-police-dogs//