CANINE POSITIVE ALERTS

CANINE POSITIVE ALERTS:

SUMMARY:

Once a canine sniff produces a positive canine alert, there is probable cause to either obtain a search warrant or conduct a warrantless search under one of the exceptions to the warrant requirement.

The alert is the multiple behavioral changes in the dog when he gets his nose in the odor he is trained to detect.

These behavior changes are dog specific. Typically they are:

Change in search speed;
Change in search direction;
Nose position changes;
Ear set changes;
Tail set changes;
Body axis leans forward;
Body height gets higher;
Breathing pattern changes;
Sniffing pattern changes;
Search behavior changes as the dog attempts to get his nose to source;
The dog then uses his four paw drive to get his nose to the source of the odor, where his behavior is rewarded;
The dog’s four paw drive allows the dog’s nose to bank from side to side in the scent cone of the odor, in an effort to go to source to be rewarded;
If the dog can get to source, then he will to receive his reward.

Once the dog gets to source of odor, the dog is trained to go into a final response, aggressive (bite or scratch and stare) or passive (sit or down and stare). There are numerous times the dog CANNOT go into final response:

Working surface is too hot;
Working surface is too cold;
Working surface is too unstable;
Working surface is moving;
The dog cannot go the source of odor, such as:

The dog cannot get to it, such as a high find, which is very common;
There is so much odor (large amount); the dog cannot pinpoint the source of the odor.

Therefore, the alert is all the behavioral changes in the dog. You may or may not see / get a final response.

The dog must alert to establish probable cause. “Interest”, “indication”, “casting”, “change of behavior” or “hit” does not qualify as an alert.

A) United States v Sokolow (490 U.S. 1 (1989) U. S. Supreme Court

A sniff from a Narcotic Detector Dog and a positive alert provides probable cause to obtain a search warrant for property.

B) United States v Richards (500 F. 2d 1025 (1974) Ninth Circuit

When detector dog alerted to belongings, there was sufficient probable cause to open the package.

C) United States v Solis (536 F. 2d 880 (1976) Ninth Circuit

Evidence acquired by odor so detected may furnish evidence of probable cause. The dogs' intrusion such as it was into the airspace open to the public in the vicinity of the trailer was not an invasion of the "curtilage", the trailer.

Drug Agent’s use of a Narcotic Detector Dog to detect narcotics odor and then obtain search warrant, was not a search under the Fourth Amendment.

D ) United States v Kaniff (351 F. 3d 780 (2003) Seventh Circuit

The defendant was routed to a secondary U.S. Customs inspection area at the airport, after a trained dog independently alerted to the odor of narcotics from her person or from a box she was carrying. When the defendant walked down the jetway past the dog, the dog pulled away from the handler, began to “work the air” behind the defendant trying to trace the source of the scent of narcotics he detected, and eventually circled the defendant’s body before hitting a box she was carrying with his nose.

The dog handler did not allow the dog to finish his alert by sitting down because the handler was not in a position immediately to verify the source of the narcotics odor and did not want to reward the dog for a potential false alert. The court concluded the dog alerted to an odor of narcotics that was somewhere between his nose, traveler’s body, and the box that traveler was carrying.

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