"When You're a Hammer..."

                "When you're a hammer,

              everything looks like a nail."

I don't know who said that first, but I just said it last.  So there.

Anyway, one of the things every police department needs these days to be up to date and all, is a drug-sniffing canine.  And not only do they want one, the Federal Gubmint often pays for them to get one!  Using our tax money.  So they can hunt us down and pick our pockets.  

We taxpayers are nice that way, aren't we?

So I thought I'd bring you, my fellow Patriots, a little bit of the inside of police doggie ownership and operation.  First of all, most of the drug-sniffers are trained in Europe.  Holland, mostly.  They're big into tulips and Heinekin and windmills and German Shepherds.  Go figure.

Anyway, the average price charged for one of these doggies all trained-up and ready go drug hunting is $15,878.00.  Pricey dogs, indeed.  But as I said, all they have to do is ask Joe and they'll likely get one.  

Next comes the selection and training of the dedicated handler, who's already a police person (can't say "man" anymore, now can we?).  So the handler gets a bump in salary for learning how to be a canine officer, usually 5%, and another bump over base pay for making the doggie a member of their family, which they do (they go home with them at night!).  Another 5% or so.  So figure about $15,000 a year for having the pooch at the ready, not counting the doggie-specific cruiser the department must then acquire ($45,000+/-).  

Now then, once a department has invested all this time, effort, energy and nearly $One Hundred Grand of somebody else's money in a "hammer," it's likely they're gonna' start looking for a "nail." 

                       We're that "nail."

So what happens is a cop will stop a motorist.  Somewhere along the line the cop will try and convince/intimidate/beg the driver into providing permission to search the car.  Or, the cop will simply say, "I smell pot."  Whether he/she/it does or not.  For the cop's nose is all that's required.  They say they smelled it, they get to search the car.  

I mean, they wouldn't lie, would they?

So they force the driver out of the car and call in the doggie.  And then the fun begins.  If the dog "alerts," or indicates it smells illicit drugs, usually by sitting down, the cops start their physical search of the car and the driver goes into bracelets.     

According to Homeland Security statistics, drug-sniffing pooches are correct when they signal only about 50% of the time.  Didn't know that, did you?  And I had to dig deep to get that data.  In fact, it may be as low as 40%, they say.  So why do we use them?  Because it gives a police department the "key" to open up your car to "searches and seizures" along the side of a highway which would otherwise be a 4th Amendment violation.  The cops might find guns.  Or bombs.  Or counterfeit money.  Or a bunch of monkeys stolen from a zoo.  No matter, the cops have open season on your car, and you might be fighting to stay out of jail for years as a result.  

And then there's the fact that some dogs may respond to silent commands from their handlers having nothing at all to do with drugs.  That's what we're told.  But they wouldn't do that, would they?   

I'm happy turning a poochie loose to chase down Bad Guys.  Or ferret out truckloads of dope at the Border.  But trying to hem up a weary traveler along side the road is just not the American thing to do.

The Chuckmeister has spoken.