Terrorism experts, law enforcement officials, U.S. military officials and dog breeders will gather next week in a Durham, N.C., hotel ballroom to try and reverse a dangerous national security deficit: the shortage of high-quality U.S.-bred detection dogs.
On the agenda are sessions like, “Federal Procurement of Detection Dogs,” “National Standards & Certification for Explosives Detection Dogs” and “Career Options for Detection Dogs: Options & Specialties within Detection Work.”
But the annual gathering since 2017 this year has an added sense of urgency. Terrorism is on the rise and creating much greater demand for detection dogs — while a shortage of U.S.-bred dogs available to detect explosives remains stubbornly persistent. All told, the U.S. government purchases approximately 90 percent of its detection dogs from Europe and other locales. The best dogs tend to be retained for use in Europe, where the U.S. finds itself competing against military competitors Russia and China for the same dogs.
The government’s first in-depth examination in 15 years of domestically bred working dogs warned last year that the U.S. remains dangerously short of this key frontline defense against terror attacks and for critical security duties such as bomb sniffing and narcotics interdiction.
The federal government “has faced a chronic shortage of domestically bred working dogs qualified for use by both the Department of Defense and other federal agencies. As adversaries, both peer and near-peer, become more adept in circumventing detection systems, the need for working dogs has steadily increased to address security vulnerabilities.”
“The lack of a robust domestic supply of working dogs creates increased supply chain risk and may threaten the ability of departments and agencies that utilize working dogs to maintain readiness if the supply from foreign markets is contested or interrupted for an extended period,” the 157-page report concluded.
The federal government currently maintains approximately 5,000 working dogs across four departments — the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and State. But only 7 percent are bred domestically, and the rest are imported.
The American Kennel Club established its Detection Dog Task Force in 2016 to help address the problem. The task force has interviewed key participants involved in explosives detection, including experts from academia, government, military, policing, training and breeding. Subsequently, the AKC and others launched initiatives focused on developing a domestic program for detection dog breeding.
These include the Patriotic Puppy Program, which provides one-on-one assistance to breeders of Labrador Retrievers, German Shorthaired Pointers and other sporting dogs, interested in learning how to raise a puppy suitable for advanced training as a detection dog. Auburn University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania are also developing their own programs to improve domestic breeding. The Department of Defense maintains a modest breeding program at its kennels at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. And in late 2021 Congress authorized a pilot program to improve acquisition of U.S.-bred working dogs that has yet to get off the ground.
But these combined efforts are far from sufficient to reverse a problem in which the government’s opaque procurement process and uncertain requirements play a starring role.
Many domestic canine breeders have the capability to produce exceptional working dogs, the government report found, but the “onerous procurement process of the government discourages vendors from supplying canines to the government sector of the market. The nonstandard requirements, evaluation system, and— most importantly—the uncertainty of the government’s future demand for working dogs makes it difficult for vendors to continue doing business with the government.”
The conference on detection dogs is taking place after a string of reports has warned of a dangerous uptick in domestic terrorism. One of the most pointed was authored by the non-partisan Center for Strategic and International Security.
“There has been a significant rise in the number of domestic terrorist attacks and plots at demonstrations in the United States, according to new CSIS data,” the organization said, adding that “the most frequent targets of attacks were government, military and law enforcement agencies, who are increasingly at the center of domestic terrorism by extremists of all ideologies.”
With American lives in the balance, there has never been a more critical moment for coming together and addressing this national security deficit.
Sheila Goffe is vice president of government relations for the American Kennel Club.