The Vapor Wake Detection (VWD) Canine Team is a standard explosives detection canine team with additional abilities and training to detect carried or body-worn explosives. The VWD canine samples the plume of air coming off a person and/or what they are carrying as the person passes through a choke point or within a crowd. The canine can also detect an explosive’s vapor-wake, after a person has transited an area, and follow the vapor-wake to the explosive source. Canines have been exceptionally successful in this form of detection in areas with a large congestion of pedestrian traffic, without impeding traffic flow.The Vapor Wake® Canine
A Vapor Wake® Detection canine is specifically bred and prepared its entire life to succeed in this line of work. A puppy enters the detector dog program upon birth. We engineer various environmental exposures and help develop the puppy’s natural abilities over the first 12 months of its life. We primarily use sporting breeds in this line of work due to the close proximity between the canine and the general population. Sporting breeds can operate within a crowd causing little or no disruption. After a puppy, or now adult canine, completes the detector dog rearing program it returns to the Canine Detection Training Center (CDTC).
A canine receives six weeks of vigorous training at the CDTC before a handler is assigned. Upon the student/handler’s arrival they enter, as a team, into a 10-week basic explosives handler course. Upon graduating the basic course the team receives a minimum of two additional weeks of training in their operational environment. Continued training in the operational environment is critical to the team’s continued success.
Auburn's College of Veterinary Medicine has invested in years of research developing this program into what we feel is a strong and capable detection tool in the fight against terrorism. Additionally, we have developed evaluation procedures and guidelines for certification, which ensure the team is performing at an extremely high rate of proficiency.
