Like any professional, dogs employed in our protection need to keep up with new technologies. From the Houston Chronicle:
Explosives-sniffing dogs added another odor to their growing array of homemade bombs they are trained to detect.One by one, canine units at the FBI's Demo Bomb Tech Range near Humble triggered on a vial containing triacetone triperoxide (TATP), a new explosive used by terrorists in the Middle East.
The chemical was used as a detonator by "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, who was arrested in 2001 for trying to destroy a jetliner en route to Miami from Paris. He was convicted of terrorism and is serving a life sentence in the United States.
"These are explosives that have been prepared by terrorists worldwide," said Kirk Yeager, supervisory bombing specialist for the FBI.
Yeager oversaw an exercise Wednesday that trained dogs to detect TATP and hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD).
Both peroxide-based explosives can be easily prepared using materials available at hardware stores and pharmacies.
The aim of the exercise, Yeager said, is to ingrain the odor into the dog's senses. Dogs are trained by receiving a reward when alerting on an odor.