OIA bomb dogs top in the U.S.
Orlando airport travelers might savor, in a way, squeaky cheeseburgers slathered in dog slobber.
The rubber faux food is key in easing long security waits.
It’s what Zoli, a 66-pound German shorthaired pointer, craves as a reward for snuffling molecules of the air wafting from passengers for hints of high explosives.
“When I give him his toy, I hoot and holler and act a little crazy, I love up on him, pick him up and wrestle with him, and all that interaction is basically what he works for,” said his handler, TSA officer Rick Brunet.
As Zoli visibly works his stubby tail off, nowhere else in the U.S. are as many airport passengers screened with detection dogs than as at Orlando International Airport, where waits for security checks sometimes approach an hour.
Dogs have been assigned as the top remedy for shortening lines.
“The canines are a force multiplier for us,” said Jerry Henderson, TSA’s security director for OIA. “Without canines, you would see incredibly extended wait times.”
Passengers who are checked out by an explosives-detection canine are then treated much like those who have TSA Precheck status.
They are not required to remove shoes and belts, which allows them to pass more quickly through lanes of luggage and people scanners.
The airport’s two checkpoints each have capacities of about 2,200 passengers an hour, which varies with types of fliers, whether business, international or family.
As capacities are exceeded and waits drag out to more than 30 minutes, TSA brings in the dogs.
The agency has 10 at work now, is training three more and plans to bring in yet another two.
“St. Patrick’s Day was the busiest ever here with 83,500 passengers,” Henderson said. “More than 29,000 of those were processed by canines, looking for explosives, checking very quickly and smoothing the process out for everyone.”
During a recent afternoon, Brunet and Zoli entered the “canine queue” at the airport’s east checkpoint next to the Hyatt Regency.
Earlier Zoli had been a little bored and jiggly, with “wanna play?” in his yellowish eyes.
On duty inside the queue, a rectangle of about 5 feet by 30 feet cordoned off by stanchions and ribbon, the hunting dog seemed nearly obsessed.
Zoli and Brunet walked clockwise inside the queue as passengers were funneled counterclockwise along the outside of the queue.
Despite the brisk current of passing humans, the dog sniffed at every toddler, adult, teenager and parent.
Zoli occasionally darted back along the moving line to catch a whiff of someone who briefly had eluded scrutiny.
“Once we start walking and I give him the command and he’s in the mindset, he’ll start smelling people as they go by, and he’ll go after their bags, their baby carriages,” said Brunet, formerly a dog handler in the Air Force. “He’s looking for something and it’s basically hide and go seek.”
Most critically, said Brunet and others involved with the dogs, is what they called the animal’s “drive” to find the scent of not bullets or fireworks but serious explosives.
Some other breeds, including shepherds and retrievers, are selected for the job. It costs as much as $10,000 to buy and $37,000 to train a dog, according to TSA.
“They have such a drive for a toy,” Brunet said. “And that’s why we pick them to do this type of job, because they have such a drive for a toy.
“He’s focus trained so that when he gets an explosive, he will sit and he will stare,” he said.” And when he sits and he stares, that’s when he wants his reward. And his reward is a squeaky cheeseburger.”
Brunet said Zoli also goes for rubber balls.
But those bounce and roll — and an exuberant Zoli would see nothing but the escaping ball even if people were in the way.
To keep them sharp, dogs are limited to 30-minute stints in the canine queue. After an 8-hour day, they stay in their handlers’ homes.
TSA officials said dogs are tested daily for their ability to detect explosives and agency officers in plainclothes often join lines of passengers, carrying luggage or a bag containing an explosive scent.
The dogs that fail testing are retrained or in rare cases removed from duty, TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz said.
Their careers typically last nearly a dozen years and retiring dogs are taken in by handlers or offered through a national adoption program.
Dogs screen so many passengers at OIA because of its design.
Most major U.S. airports have multiple checkpoints.
However, Orlando has only two and a single dog at each will encounter a torrent of passengers.
Airport director Phil Brown said the west checkpoint opened in 1981 and the bigger east side opened in 1992.
“We didn’t have security like this in 1981,” he said. “As a matter of fact, we didn’t have to start checking boarding passes until the early ’90s when the first Gulf War occurred.”
The new south terminal now under construction will house its checkpoint in what will amount to a very large box where lanes and officers can be added as needed.
There also are 11 TSA explosives dogs provided to the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority to patrol lobbies, garages and other areas — but not the checkpoints.
As the TSA dogs work at checkpoints, “behavior” officers watch passenger reactions.
John McClean, a behavioral specialist, said that on a typical day as many as five passengers will be given additional screening because of the way they or a TSA dog reacted.
No explosives have ever been found on passengers at OIA, TSA and airport officials said.
TSA dogs are accustomed to balloons, light sabers, service dogs, chaos and affection.
“He has ‘do not pet’ on him but nobody listens to that,” Brunet said of Zoli. “The little kids can’t read and some of the adults just ignore it.
“Luckily he can work through distractions. It doesn’t faze him.”