TSA is Changing Its Dog Strategy to Stop Scaring Children (Yes This is Real)

The TSA uses dogs to smell passengers and also luggage. Dogs do have a keen sense of smell, and can be train to pay attention to certain smells, but often it’s left open to the interpretation of the person with them to decide whether or not a dog noticed something. That ‘discretion’ is often confused with ‘probable cause’.

In the past they’ve used dogs to decide who gets to skip regular security and use the PreCheck line. That would be concerning except regular screening doesn’t provide greater safety.

Roughly 80% of the dogs used by TSA have floppy ears. The other 20% with pointy ears scare children so as pointy-eared dogs retire they are being replaced by dogs with floppy ears. There is no official policy on dog ears but the TSA has an unwritten rule. More discretion,

Around 80 percent of the 1,200 canines TSA uses nationwide are ones with droopy ears versus the 20 percent that have cone-shaped ones.

…Shelton said they will not rule out a pointy-ear dog because of its ears or appearance, and they look at the quality of a dog first and foremost.

The adjustment to consider the appearance of dogs during the purchasing process was part of an informal internal decision, according to TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein. No official document on the change was issued.

The TSA spends $26,000 to $42,000 training each dog and accompanying dog handler. Though they’re trying to make the dogs friendlier-looking, they don’t want kids to pet the dogs but did you know that dog handlers are given “baseball-like cards for [their] dog” to “give to children and adults who want to greet the canine while its working” which may be the most valuable feature of the program.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Dogs with floppy ears are like rabbits who have a genetic mutation causing their ears to droop. Therefore, TSA is giving preference to mutants and harming the career prospects of able bodied non-mutant dogs.

    This kind of political activism has got to stop. It is ruining America.

  2. Derek, what about breeds that always have floppy ears?

    I hate TSA of course too, but this is probably the least harmless/offensive thing they’ve done. Who cares what kind of dogs they buy?

  3. The USDA has a longstanding stated preference for beagles and beagle-mixes for its agricultural inspection program both because they are very good at finding food anywhere and any time and because they’re seen as non-threatening by most people at points of entry. (Smaller breed dogs also tend to have longer happy and healthy working careers than large breed dogs, and there are probably cost savings in terms of training those floppy eared agro beagles for that job.)

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