Having a dog for a pet makes it a little difficult to imagine them travelling across the country and sniffing out all potential threats to the people's safety. Threats to human lives in the form of bombs, grenades and other explosives have become quite common, even in public spaces such as the subway, bus terminals and airports. It is becoming a necessity for law enforcement officers to have canines who can sniff out these threats before they cause destruction to human life. Here are a few ways in which you can tell whether your little puppy may be able to become an explosive detection dog.

A great nose

All dogs have a heightened sense of smell. However, the ones who make it huge in bomb-sniffing need to have a great nose, starting from the shape to the function. The most popular dogs for bomb sniffing are German shepherds, Labradors, golden retrievers, vizslas, and Belgian Malinois. These are the breeds which have been known to be easy to train and become the best sniffers for the past few decades.

Lots of energy

A dog that is going into training as a sniffer dog needs to have a lot of energy to run around and keep up all the physical activity which is part of dog training. Dogs breeds such as basset hounds might seem appropriate because of their sniffing capabilities, but they might not be able to keep up with the constant physical activity which is part of bomb-sniffing.

Obsessiveness

Another quality that a dog needs to have to qualify for training to sniff bombs is obsessiveness. It means that the dogs that tear up their bed, claw at their cage and incessantly chew on things have just the right temperament to be bomb sniffers. In addition to this characteristic, a bomb sniffer dog should not startle easily. Therefore, they cannot run at the sound of gunshots, and they cannot panic and start biting people in a crowd.

These are a few of the character and temperament characteristics that good sniffer dogs should have. It is crucial to have a dog assessed by a trainer before committing them to any form of training. The expert will determine the speed, sniffing capabilities, concentration and other characteristics of the dog before deciding whether a dog is appropriate for the sniffer training or not. As long as the canine has the needed physical stamina, it will be easy to instil the other characteristics into it.

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