Joshua Korosi said:
Yes, there is such a standard.
Problems like the one you just described have been thought up already by the law enforcement community. To prevent them, a standard of exactly how a dog should behave on an alert was drafted. Further, like Randi's challenge, it had to be a result not subject to interpretation - in other words, the "alert" signal has to be something that the dog would not occasionally do by himself as he's sniffing, so that the handler would not misidentify an alert response. This is, typically, sitting. A dog is led to walk along a line of luggage or the side of a vehicle, constantly sniffing, in a pattern - up and then down, as he works along the line. When the dog alerts, he sits - immediately and deliberately. He does not sniff anymore. He does not wag his tail or move his legs. He does absolutely nothing at all, until the handler commands him to break. This is a behavioral standard that the dog is trained to, and the dog is tested - he must do it the same way, every time, or he is not certified. Period.
The alert behavior standard is documented, and all a lawyer needs to do is request a copy of the appropriate file. Things like dashcams can also be obtained by the lawyer. If somebody wants to dispute whether the dog actually alerted or not, all one has to do is look at the documented standard.
Really? Then why did one professional law enforcement (not MWD) K9 handler testify under oath that:
"As the dog handler testified, an “alert†is scratching and biting at an object and a “cast†is temporarily stopping, giving part of object minute attention and then continuing with inspection."
United States v Rivas (157 F. 3d 364 (1998) Fifth Circuit
While another's sworn testimony was that an alert was:
"...when a dog jumped up on driver’s side window, which officer interpreted as an alert on the interior of the vehicle, gave officers probable cause to search the passenger compartment."
United States v Seals (987 F. 2d 1102 (1993) Fifth Circuit
And yet another LEO handler claims that an alert is when:
"...we were walking back through one of the apartment complex's. "Justice" stopped and threw his head up in the air."
While another officer FROM THE SAME SCHOOL relates that his dog's alert is:
" the dog put his nose on it and scratched."
http://asct-nationalk9.com/generic9.html
And a different LE source claims that an alert is:
"Upon location of one of these (five) controlled substances, (the dog) is trained to bite and paw at the source of the odor."
http://www.k9fleck.org/nlu04.htm
While the current California Law Enforcement standards and training requirements for K9 training states that an alert is ANY "recognized signal from the dog to the handler", and in their documentation on certification lists no record or test of any dogs ability to alert in the sitting still manner you claim is standard throughout law enforcement.
Also, the United States Police Canine Association gives no standard for an alert, other than:
"Alert" is the term which describes the dog's behavior when the dog detects the odor of drugs which it is trained to identify."
http://www.uspcak9.com/training/introsearchandseizure.shtml
And the New York State Municipal Police Training Council
in their K9 certification testing requirements, instead of using the sitting still alert that you claim is standard, relies on the officer to decide whether or not the dog has alerted:
"h) The handler must verbally notify the examiner to the dog's alert."
http://www.policek9.com/new_york_.html
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So it seems odd in the face of your claim that there is one single quantifiable standard for the definition of a K9 alert (as stipulated, just as standardized as radar, where 95MPH means 95MPH....not 'passive' or 'initial' or 'aggressive', or 'casting', or so forth...), that so many people in actual law enforcement or the courts don't seem to have used this single alert standard of the dog sitting still.
But please feel free to provide us with a link to a copy of this universal standard...
