As San Antonio, Texas law enforcement returned or sought new homes for dogs from a shuttered dog training operation, one found a place with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
“It was a most unusual circumstance, and we were notified that there might be some dogs that met the criteria that we adhere to in selecting dogs to meet the TSA mission,” Christopher Shelton, overseer of TSA’s Canine Training Center, said. “We looked at several dogs and selected Kora, who we think has the right temperament, drive and build that should take well to the skills we will teach her to become paired with a canine handler and eventually become a certified TSA explosives detection canine.”
Kora is a 2-year-old Belgian Malinois. She was selected from three potential dogs, and will now be one of the approximately 350 canines the TSA will train this year to aid aviation, multimodal, mass transit and cargo environments. Once paired with a handler, she will be trained to recognize explosives odors and locate explosives odor sources, while her partner will need to interpret her change of behavior and conduct logical and systematic searchers with her.
This training occurs during a 10 to 12-week course at the TSA’s San Antonio facility. That facility has been training such canines since 2016. Dogs like Kora have also been a part of TSA anti-explosives operations since 2001, and today there are more than 1,000 operating throughout the country.