Back to School: What Our Detection Canines Are Already Finding

The school year is underway, and Interquest Detection Canine teams are back on campuses doing what they do every day—helping schools identify prohibited substances and contraband before they have an opportunity to create a bigger problem.

And it hasn’t taken long for our dogs to get to work.

In just the first weeks of the school year, our teams have already located a variety of prohibited items on the campuses we serve.

Sometimes It’s Hidden. Sometimes It’s Right in Front of Us.

One of the realities of working in schools is that contraband can look very different today than it did even a few years ago.

Items may be tucked inside backpacks, concealed in personal belongings, left in vehicles or disguised among completely ordinary objects.

Some are easy for a person to recognize.

Others aren’t.

That’s where a trained detection canine has an advantage. The dog isn’t searching for what an item looks like. The dog is searching for the odor it has been trained to recognize.

Vapes Continue to Be Part of the Picture

Vaping products remain one of the items our teams encounter on school campuses.

The challenge is that these products continue to change. They come in different shapes, sizes, packaging and appearances, and some can easily blend in with the everyday items students carry.

To a trained detection dog, however, appearance isn’t important.

Our dogs work from an odor picture rather than a visual one.

More Than 35 Years of Helping Schools

For more than 35 years, Interquest Detection Canines has worked alongside school administrators to provide a proactive resource for maintaining safer campuses.

The tools may change.

The hiding places may change.

The challenges facing schools may change.

But our mission remains remarkably simple:

Find what shouldn’t be there—and help deter it from coming through the doors in the first place.