L Litter Update

Although this is a bit late, Merry Christmas, but for Friday, Happy New Year! A few days ago I received an update about the L litter and I figure I would post about how Llarson's litter is doing.

Llenoir, Llangley, Llinnane, and Llarson were the four puppies from the litter to enter official training with the Canine Training and Evaluation Branch early at 11 months. Llane, Llangone, Lleavey, Llevin, and Llilore are still undergoing evaluations with the Canine Breeding and Development Center (the puppy program) and are looking forward to joining their brother and sisters soon.

Just a quick clarification about the training departments. Unlike Guide Dogs for the Blind or other similar programs that trains and breeds their working dogs, the Canine Breeding and Development Center (CBDC) is strictly a breeding program that relies on puppy raisers to help raise the puppies and prepare them for future work. The CBDC is essenitially the puppy training aspect of things.

Once the puppies reach 12 months and in Llarson's case 11 months, they are evaluated for official training by the CBDC. This evaluation includes both medical screening and traning ability. If they pass then they are sent to the Canine Training and Evaluation Branch (CTEB) for official training. If they dog not pass then the dog will be offered for adoption to the general public. If all goes well and the dog completes offical training, the dog will graduate and become apart of the National Explosives Detection Canine Team Program (NEDCTP). The dog will then work in airports or other mass transit areas to protect our country.

Sometimes dogs do not make it all the way through official training for what ever reason. (The standards are extremely high to become a part of the NEDCTP.) In this case they will generally be offered to Customs and Border Protection or other police agencies to do other detection work such as drug detection, currency, etc.

I hope this helped clarify the order of how training works to prepare a dog to become an explosive detection dog. A lot of work, but in the end it truly pays off to have these dogs protect our country.


Happy Holidays!

-Addie & Ggoody