SOUTH DAYTONA - Huckleberry, a 2-year-old black Labrador retriever, stuck his nose in a box with a small quantity of black powder use n explosives.
His limp tail sparked to life, wagging fast. He suddenly sat still, looking expectantly, almost smiling, at his master.
"Good boy," the handler said, tossing a bumper, a squeak toy stuffed inside canvas. The dog dashed after his reward.
Huckleberry had done his, Job, said Hank Nolin, president of Daytona Beach-based Sun State Specialty K-9s. The demand for bomb dogs tripled after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and the private security agency that trains Labrador Retrievers to find drugs now finds itself training more dogs to search for explosives.
I was on the telephone with two of my clients when the first tower collapsed," Nolin said, referring to the World Trade Center in New York City. "One immediately said: GÇ£We need more bomb dogs.GÇÖ"
Normally, airports and police prefer breeds like the German shepherd or the Belgian Malinois. But the acute vigilance of the post-Sept. 11 era has created a sniffer-dog shortage. With everyone from the Federal Aviation Administration to cruise-ship operators clamoring for dogs, trained German shepherds and Mali are hard to find - and their prices are soaring. Also scarce are ready-to-go Labrador retrievers and golden retrievers, two other pedigrees often favored for bomb, contraband and post-disaster sniffing.
Larry Myers, an Auburn University dog researcher and consultant to the FAA, estimates that the government alone - including the military, the FAA, and the Department of Energy, which oversees nuclear power plants - wants to add about 10,000 more sniffer-dogs to the 8,000 it already employed.
