What is a Working Dog?

By Special Agent Bobby Bureau
August 23, 2009  

Editor’s Note: We are always looking for ways to inform parents of programs that will help them raise their children. Well we found one it is called “Special Agent Bobby Bureau”. We will be joining him to give you tips for kids of all ages. The best way to tell you about this agent is to let him tell you himself.

The Kids’ Page is designed for children and their parents to learn more about the FBI through age-appropriate games, tips, stories and inter actives. We also introduce you to our working dogs and show how FBI special agents and analysts investigate cases. First, can you help Special Agent Bobby Bureau get in disguise for his undercover assignment? He’s depending on you. You have to visit the sight to sign up as a special agent.

Today’s we talk “What is a Working Dog?” We would like to know what you think? dan@youngchronicle.com

We strongly recommend that you visit this sight with your child. This sight We rate a 10

 

You ask, “What is a working dog?” “Is it a dog that does more than hang out at the house all day and bark at the mailman?” “Is it a dog that gets in the car like Mom and Dad and goes to the office?” Well, sort of ….

Working dogs are amazing animals specially trained to protect people and to make life easier for them. Some working dogs act as eyes for blind people, ears for the hearing impaired, and helpers for the physically challenged. They also protect sheep from wolves, and they can help a police officer catch criminals. These special dogs can find victims of disasters under lots of rubble, and they can find people lost in the woods. They are awesome.

The FBI has some very special working dogs. Power is the newest addition to the group of Working Dogs at FBI Headquarters. His job as a Chemical Explosives Dog is to sniff out bombs, explosion debris, firearms, and ammunition. Other FBI Working Dogs find drugs, money, and people. Just how do they do it?

Dogs instinctively know how to find things. A Handler, the dog’s human partner, teaches the dog what to search for. A dog can use all of his/her senses, like hearing, seeing, and smelling to find a specific person or thing. To do this, though, requires a lot of training. They are always practicing, but the dogs love it because it is what they were born to do.

At the FBI, the Handler is usually a FBI Special Agent or an FBI Police Officer. The Agent or Police Officer and his or her dog work together as a team. The Handler teaches the dog to find very specific things in all kinds of weird places like in a tree, in the woods or a field, in a suitcase, in a car, on a street, in a closet, under rubble, or in the water or under snow. What do you think that the FBI’s Chemical Explosives Dogs do? They are trained to “sniff out” different explosive chemicals. During their extensive training, explosives scents are imprinted into the dog’s memory and the dogs are trained on every type of explosive. This means that they can detect approximately 19,000 different combinations of explosives.

 

Name: Kurt
Date of Birth: May 17, 2004
Breed: Golden Retriever/Black Labrador Retriever
Stationed: Washington, DC

 

 

Name: Atwood
Date of Birth: June 16, 1998
Breed: Labrador Retriever
Stationed: Washington, DC

 

 

Name: Power
Date of Birth: December 2, 2002
Breed: Labrador Retriever
Stationed: Washington, DC

 

 

Name: Bismarck
Date of Birth: January 7, 2002
Breed: German Shepherd
Stationed: Philadelphia, PA

 

 

Name: Disco
Date of Birth: 2001
Breed: Labrador Retriever
Stationed: Los Angeles, CA

 

Next Week: We will talk about Narcotics Detection Dogs

Source: FBI Kids