Training dogs to sniff out IEDs

HARTSVILLE, S.C. - A dog can detect scents 100 to 150 yards away depending on weather conditions, and that makes man’s best friend a Marine’s best friend on the roads of Afghanistan.

Richard McDonald, senior trainer and South Carolina site manager with American K-9 Interdiction, has been training Labrador retrievers to sniff out improvised explosive devices for the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan for the last two and a half years. The company trains the dogs and the Marines to handle them.

McDonald and his crew have been working with more than 40 U.S. Marines from across the nation five days a week for the last three weeks. The Marines have another few days of training to go before they leave.

Another group of 42 Marines will be coming in later this month to become handlers as well.

“Ninety-five percent of them have never touched a dog before,” McDonald said.

The Marines train in hay fields, cornfields, car lots, junkyards, inside buildings and at an old school during the day and at night to simulate as many different scenarios as possible. Primarily, the dogs’ job will be to find roadside bombs, but in several instances the dogs have found bomb-making facilities, checked vehicles and cleared buildings in country. The Marines communicate with the dogs through whistles and hand signals.

The dogs are taught to identify 27 different odors that are present in a variety of explosive devices including C4, TNT and ammonia nitrate. They can even identify those scents when mixed with other chemicals.

“Teaching ’em the bomb thing is the easiest part,” McDonald said. “We’re not asking them to do a whole lot compared to what they can do.”

When the dogs find a bomb they signal the handlers by laying down, and the Marines disarm the bomb, mark it and go around or blow it up.

Upon completion of the training in Hartsville, the Marine handlers and their dogs will head to California for a month of desert training where they are integrated with their battalions before deploying to Afghanistan in the spring. The Marine handlers will be responsible for the dogs until both return stateside.

McDonald has been training labs for hunting and competition since the 1980s, but he can’t think of anything better than training them to save lives.

One Marine who had handled a lab on his last tour of duty in Afghanistan said the dog he was with had five “finds,” and each time there were 20 to 30 Marines with him. “These dogs have saved lives,” he said.

“It makes a difference when you know what you’re doing is saving lives,” McDonald said. So far, not a single Marine has been killed by an IED that had one of these dogs.

The Marine Corps has been so pleased with the results it has doubled the number of dogs it needs from 315 to 637. “That’s how effective they are,” McDonald said. One dog has found as many as 33 explosives during a seven-month deployment.

The dogs are also cost-effective. The Marine Corps can spend $60,000 on one dog, but similar technology could cost billions of dollars in investment.

Both male and female labs are used, though females are spayed before they deploy, and color doesn’t matter either.

The dogs are doing what comes natural, the hunting part that is, McDonald said.

Labradors became the choice breed because of the availability of the dogs, their trainability and the way they can adjust to different handlers.

But not all labs make the cut.

“These dogs go through a thorough evaluation before selecting them. It doesn’t mean because it’s a lab it can do what we want it to do,” McDonald said. “Just like all horses don’t go to the Kentucky Derby.”

The dogs are deployed to Afghanistan for seven months at a time. Once they return home, there are 30 days of maintenance before the dogs must be recertified. Then, they can be trained with other Marines for their next deployment.

During the two and a half years of the program, only four dogs have been lost: one to an accident, two to heat and one to a remote-controlled bomb.

If a dog can no longer certify to participate in the program, the dogs are adopted out with first consideration to police departments. One dog went to the family of a Marine handler who fell on a grenade to save his unit.

Another Marine handler who lost both his legs from an IED will be receiving his dog. The Marine lost his legs because the unit left the dog at camp because he thought they would be in a firefight. “If the dog had been with him, it wouldn’t have happened,” he said.

McDonald got involved with the program during its testing phase at Auburn University as a consultant in 2005-06. The Marine Corps tested and trained 21 dogs and upon seeing potential put out contracts for 54 dogs. McDonald worked on that contract through American K-9 Interdiction in Virginia.

 “I was successful at what I did before this, but I get a lot more satisfaction out of this than training hunting dogs or competition dogs,” McDonald said. “It never gets boring, and you know you’re contributing to something worthwhile.”

The current group of Marines will graduate Friday as another group arrives that same week to begin their five weeks of training.