7 ms·

This is something I see claimed a lot. I'd be very interested in any information you have about this. I find it very unlikely this kind of training is part of t

by mejari 11y ago

This is something I see claimed a lot. I'd be very interested in any information you have about this. I find it very unlikely this kind of training is part of the official training, so I'm imagining it's some kind of unintentional conditioning? Or is it done on purpose by the officers?

lukeschlather 11y ago
This is covered in the article, and it's quite straightforward. The handler was giving the dog treats for alerting, rather than giving treats for finding drugs. The primary trouble I see is that there is no penalty for re-training dogs like this.
- mejari 11y ago
  The article only discusses that the handler gives the dog treats for alerting, it doesn't go into the motivations about that, whether they're because the officers aren't considering the Pavlovian conditioning involved and are accidentally reinforcing such behavior or if it's intentional.
  - kd0amg 11y ago
    Does the motivation matter when we're talking about whether it establishes sufficient justification for searching someone's car? After a clear flaw is pointed out, a response of "We didn't mean to ruin the statistical power of this test" wouldn't do much to restore my confidence in its results.
    - mejari 11y ago
      I was specifically responding to this comment >This is done to get probable cause for a search when there is nothing more than an officer's hunch or just a desire to hassle a particular individual. that claims that this is done purposefully. That's what I was wondering about, not the overall efficacy of drug dogs.
radiorental 11y ago
You can watch this 6 minute video of a stop, I've linked to where the officer was caught triggering the search https://youtu.be/w-WMn_zHCVo?t=3m35s https://youtu.be/w-WMn_zHCVo?t=3m35s It happens.
- mejari 11y ago
  Thank you. It is kind of the videographer's assertion that "Check here" is a command to trigger instead of just a command to check there, however, isn't it?
  - radiorental 11y ago
    Yes but no drugs were found and the 'scratching at window' was the trigger for search. As the op article indicated - four legged search warrants.
    - mejari 11y ago
      That doesn't really address my comment. It's still just an assertion that that is an intentional trigger. The op article similarly makes this assertion but there is no supporting evidence that I saw.
jlarocco 11y ago
It's not intentional, but it's a real thing: http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/2010-2011/02/20110223_drug_dogs.html http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/2010-2011/02/2...
- mejari 11y ago
  So it's less an issue of police officers intentionally triggering things in order to harass individuals like the original commenter said and more of unintentional training. Thank you for the link!
  - LordKano 11y ago
    One can call it plausible deniability. There are many examples that have been caught on camera, I see that another commenter posted a link to one of them on this thread. When you see things like the handler returning to a previously cleared spot and indicating that the dog should check it again; three or four times until the dog alerts, you can assume that the handler has a severe short term memory problem and he just forgot that the dog had previously checked the area and failed to alert. I think it's more indicative of the officer hinting to the dog that "this is where I want you to alert" and their training reinforces the idea that if the dog does what's expected, there will be a treat.
    - mejari 11y ago
      That's why I was asking about if there was any information about this, or any studies/investigations done, since people can go back and forth forever with "Well, did they already check that part? Is it intentional? Was the dog triggered?" Etc.. etc... It definitely seems like an area ripe for investigation, I just haven't seen any.
marincounty 11y ago
Antidotial evidence: I have never had a dog that didn't know my moods, fears, apprehensions, etc.? I don't think being called "Man's best friend" is a worn out cliche? My last dog picked up on so many of my personality traits/tells-- I felt quilty. (My cat--whole nother story.)
- mejari 11y ago
  Very true, I guess my question is about the intentionality of it. I doubt you intentionally trained your dog to respond to your moods, but he/she did it anyway. The claim here is that officers are doing this intentionally in order to get around the law of probable cause. I'm interested in cases where this has been shown to happen.

by mejari 11y ago

lukeschlather 11y ago

This is covered in the article, and it's quite straightforward. The handler was giving the dog treats for alerting, rather than giving treats for finding drugs. The primary trouble I see is that there is no penalty for re-training dogs like this.

mejari 11y ago
The article only discusses that the handler gives the dog treats for alerting, it doesn't go into the motivations about that, whether they're because the officers aren't considering the Pavlovian conditioning involved and are accidentally reinforcing such behavior or if it's intentional.
- kd0amg 11y ago
  Does the motivation matter when we're talking about whether it establishes sufficient justification for searching someone's car? After a clear flaw is pointed out, a response of "We didn't mean to ruin the statistical power of this test" wouldn't do much to restore my confidence in its results.
  - mejari 11y ago
    I was specifically responding to this comment >This is done to get probable cause for a search when there is nothing more than an officer's hunch or just a desire to hassle a particular individual. that claims that this is done purposefully. That's what I was wondering about, not the overall efficacy of drug dogs.

radiorental 11y ago

You can watch this 6 minute video of a stop, I've linked to where the officer was caught triggering the search https://youtu.be/w-WMn_zHCVo?t=3m35s https://youtu.be/w-WMn_zHCVo?t=3m35s It happens.

mejari 11y ago
Thank you. It is kind of the videographer's assertion that "Check here" is a command to trigger instead of just a command to check there, however, isn't it?
- radiorental 11y ago
  Yes but no drugs were found and the 'scratching at window' was the trigger for search. As the op article indicated - four legged search warrants.
  - mejari 11y ago
    That doesn't really address my comment. It's still just an assertion that that is an intentional trigger. The op article similarly makes this assertion but there is no supporting evidence that I saw.

jlarocco 11y ago

It's not intentional, but it's a real thing: http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/2010-2011/02/20110223_drug_dogs.html http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/2010-2011/02/2...

mejari 11y ago
So it's less an issue of police officers intentionally triggering things in order to harass individuals like the original commenter said and more of unintentional training. Thank you for the link!
- LordKano 11y ago
  One can call it plausible deniability. There are many examples that have been caught on camera, I see that another commenter posted a link to one of them on this thread. When you see things like the handler returning to a previously cleared spot and indicating that the dog should check it again; three or four times until the dog alerts, you can assume that the handler has a severe short term memory problem and he just forgot that the dog had previously checked the area and failed to alert. I think it's more indicative of the officer hinting to the dog that "this is where I want you to alert" and their training reinforces the idea that if the dog does what's expected, there will be a treat.
  - mejari 11y ago
    That's why I was asking about if there was any information about this, or any studies/investigations done, since people can go back and forth forever with "Well, did they already check that part? Is it intentional? Was the dog triggered?" Etc.. etc... It definitely seems like an area ripe for investigation, I just haven't seen any.

marincounty 11y ago

Antidotial evidence: I have never had a dog that didn't know my moods, fears, apprehensions, etc.? I don't think being called "Man's best friend" is a worn out cliche? My last dog picked up on so many of my personality traits/tells-- I felt quilty. (My cat--whole nother story.)

mejari 11y ago
Very true, I guess my question is about the intentionality of it. I doubt you intentionally trained your dog to respond to your moods, but he/she did it anyway. The claim here is that officers are doing this intentionally in order to get around the law of probable cause. I'm interested in cases where this has been shown to happen.