Are Metras sniffers up to snuff?
(The following article by Frank Main was posted on the Chicago Sun Times website on February 26.) CHICAGO — A bomb-sniffing dog that protects the Chicago area’s commuter rails failed to detect a pound of explosives concealed in luggage less than six feet from its nose — and spent hours standing around, a CBS2/Chicago Sun-Times investigation found. A dog and handler from Securitas Inc. did not react when an undercover tester walked past the team three times with the bag at Metra’s Ogilvie Transportation Center earlier this month. The tester then placed the luggage in front of the dog for 30 seconds, but the team did not discover the explosives. The experiment was captured on a hidden video camera. The camera also showed dog handlers sitting and talking for as much as two hours at a time during five separate visits to Metra stations between October and January. The handlers and dogs rarely moved from one spot. Metra spokeswoman Judy Pardonnet said the dogs were never intended to detect
