Reading your detection dog’s behaviour

Reading and knowing your dog’s behaviours.
Here is the full video of an operational search with Police and Trading Standards of a domestic dwelling. We are looking for cigarettes/tobacco.
Over 50% of the finds that we have operationally, the dogs are unable to give the solid indication that you see on social media, using brick walls, consoles and scent carousels. One of the reasons for this is because the dog is unable to place their nose directly on the odour, as they can do on a brick wall. You’ll see in this video, the dogs change of behaviour started in a completely different room to where the target odour actually was, so for us, training on a wall gave us no preparation for this operational search. If I had disregarded the change of behaviour the dog had in the bathroom initially, then without doubt, the chain of events leading to the discovery of the under floor concealment would not have happened. Waiting for a dog to give a “social media indication” is not an option for us during operational searches.
What’s really interesting for me is that the Police Officers working with me here, who do so on a regular basis, were also able to clearly read the dogs behaviour and were aware that something was not quite right. They too were watching the dogs behaviour and not waiting for a TFR.
For the last 14 years as a tobacco dog handler/trainer I’ve had to learn about changes of behaviour, because so many of our finds are concealed that well and are totally inaccessible, the dogs cannot place their noses directly on the source of the odour. What worries me sometimes is thinking of the times in the early days when my dogs had changes of behaviour and I disregarded them because of my lack of experience and knowledge. Working as an operational handler has taught me so much, the vast majority of which I could not have learned from working a brick wall every day. I am extremely lucky to be an operator, working multiple dogs on a daily basis with law enforcement agencies.
Knowing your dog and your dog’s behaviour is an essential skill for me as without it we would not get the results we do.
Trust your dog and learn your dogs behaviours, because things are very different in the operational world to the world of brick walls in your back yard.
Video used with permission from the Police and Trading Standards.