Puppy wants to drive the Truck! - Page 1

On a trip to NY, Raven, Mickey and I visited one of my cop buddies. Mickey was... somewhere... chasing squirrels. So my buddy let Raven and I borrow the cruiser.

The ECON in that region has a few K9s, and they're trained to sniff out poached game. My buddy isn't one of the K9 handlers, but I'll forgive him for that *laughs*

Other pics of Raven: Flying a Kite Russell Terrier, taken back in July; and some one-person stacking -attempts!-, taken in October. 

just out of curiosity... how do they differentiate between poached game and legal game when they alert on someone?

seems to me like an easy way to make an ilegal search legal.

Time of year, what type of animal it is, whether or not it was tagged and you have a record for it.

There laws in place in NY that say if you got, say a deer last season, all the meat has to be gone by a certain date next season. If you have venison on you past that time, it can be taken as evidence of poaching when combined with other indications. There's also a decent amount of out-of-season hunting and trapping up there. If you have freshly killed furbearers out of season, animals from a season that wasn't opened that year, or untagged animals, the possession thereof is also illegal and can be used as evidence of poaching.

[edit: I forgot to add importation. If you hunt outside of NY, and bring game in, you have to have proper paperwork to verify that it was indeed bagged elsewhere; and under legal conditions.]

New York's hunting laws: [link]

so the dogs are trained to alert differently to the smell of meat from a deer and the smell of meat from a bear and the smell of meat from other animals?

im thinking if they give the same alert to any meat... they could alert on someone who has a bag of grocceries in their car and has a couple beef steaks... then the officer searches the trunk and finds cocaine or pot in the car or whatever ilegal stuff the driver has on them.

doesnt seem right.

That would be the end justifies the means!!! yes??

no. it would be a violation of our constitutional rights.

So would the end justifies the means..

JC, great fun pictures, hope tou didn't let him drive, he looks underage to me, lol. liz

fun pic (and i remember the jack russell pic-very funny too)! the expression on raven's face is classic! he looks like he really thinks he's going somewhere! and his paws! geez, are they as big as they look in the pic!?

i just looked at the stack pics - he's really beautiful! he reminds me of angus a little - the hair around his ears and the wavy coat. although raven is nearly all black and angus is black/red long coat (but not long stock or plush). anyway, he's a really nice looking dog and it sounds like he can make you laugh alot.

Gretsch -- The key phrase is "probable cause." Without reason, then yes it would be a violation of rights. Just randomly knocking on a person's doog with a game-sniffer to see if they had illegal meat. The dogs are trained to alert the same on all game in their scent vocabulary.

And, given your example: the game-dog hitting on a steak and finding pot, there are three things to consider: 1) game-dogs are trained for GAME, and can recognize the meats they are trained to hit on over the storebought type. 2) game-dogs are not usually trained to recognize drugs... just as drug-dogs are not trained to recongize game. 3) if an officer is searching with probably cause for a specific item, the evidence can be used in conjuction for building a larger case against an individual. Also recall: Most people don't drive around with game in the back of the car like it's groceries, and you can't buy it at most supermarkets, so why search there? Generally it's found in private freezers and meat-lockers, or on vehicles coming out of the woods. Check-points are common in hunting season. And with the pot/cocain scenario, that's a risk you take when you travel with with illegal substances on you. The same constitutional rights that are applied in drug-searches are applied to all dog-sniffable illegals... but constitutional rights do not protect your right to do illegal things.

Raven's got monster paws! They're still huge. He's going to be a moose, I think. But hopefully he developes some coordination some day. *grins* He's always making me laugh. Last week we went on base, I wearing my K9 garb, and him on his working lead, and did a mock "patrol" of one of the barracks -- it was authorized by the LPOs, of course -- they were bored and just to see the expressions on the young sailors' faces when a GSD came through. *laughs* There were just a few nervous looks, and suddenly everyone had places to go. I bet if there were any illegal substances, it got flushed that night.