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Abby Herrboldt
Miss. Heckenliable
English IV
October 22, 2014
Accelerant Detection Dogs
Arson in the United States each year adds up to billions of dollars’ worth of property damage to people’s homes, businesses, and many other buildings. Accelerant detection dogs
(arson dogs) are highly trained canines that fire departments and police officers use to investigate the source of starting property fires mainly caused by arson. Arson is intentionally starting a fire for revenge, profit, or entertainment (Helen Fitzgerald). Arson dogs go through intensive specialized training; they are able to distinguish between the different types of fuel. Their noses are so sensitive that they can detect the smallest amount, up to five micro liters, of fuel that machines cannot detect themselves (Fitzgerald). Arson is a bigger problem than people realize, the arson investigators just do not make these stories as aware to the public as other news stories are; some people may not even know what an Arson dog is. Accelerant Detection Dogs are a huge asset to a quick and sure find to evidence in a fire scene that saves detectives a great amount of time.
Accelerant Detection K-9s go through training to become a certified arson dogs (State
Farm). These dogs are brought into a fire scene to search the building or area after the fire has been put out and the area is clear to search. They are trained to sniff out traces of accelerants
(gasoline, lighter fluid, etc.) that may have been the cause of the fire (State Farm). “ATF arson dogs can serve until they are nine years old,” DCI agent Chris Konrad stated.

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Arson dogs are not just used to search sites of fires, they also need to have the ability to search areas, crowds, vehicles, individuals and equipment. They search clothes, belongings and vehicles of arson suspects after they have been taken into custody. They usually end up providing police with useful evidence to further the investigation. Arson dogs can sniff out a suspect in large crows or follow the trail of accelerant if the suspect is on the move (Fitzgerald).
Between 1992 and 1996 ATF (The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives) investigated 2.970 arson-related fires in the US which caused 349 deaths, 1031 injuries, and $2.9 billion in property damage. Arson is one of the most difficult criminal offenses because they are based on evidence found in the fire. In most cases, there are no witnesses, and possible evidence is usually lost in the fire (ATF).
During 1984 ATF’s Accelerant Detection program trained the first canine a yellow
Labrador retriever to test the new detection system they would use. The results were submitted to the American academy of Forensic Sciences. In May of 1986, the first operation canine began training with the Connecticut State Police, and was field operational by September 1986. Both of these dogs came from guide dog foundations. Because of the positive results of the study, the
National Canine Accelerant Detection Program was established. Since then, the ATF has trained and certified accelerant detection handler/canine teams for local fire departments all over the
United States. (ATF)
Labradors are the most commonly used dogs for the job. They have the willingness to work and to please their trainers. They are hearty, intelligent, can readily adapt to changing environments, and are nonaggressive dogs which are needed for the required work.
Volunteers raise the dogs from eight weeks until they are around fourteen months old. They give their love, time, and home to socialize the puppies. All dogs received by them for work are

Herrboldt 3 housebroken, spayed or neutered, vaccinations are done and the dogs have a clean medical history (ATF). Every arson dog comes with a handler who commits to working with the dog for a set number of years. The dogs live with their handlers to establish a very close, friendly relationship. Arson dogs are only fed on a food reward system, which is why they train every single day, that’s the only time they eat. They work to be fed, which is how they learn that they get treats when they find something of interest for their handler (Wisegeek).
Many of these dogs are “career change” or “second career” canines. This means that these dogs didn’t qualify for a companion or guide dog program but had skills needed for other jobs. This gives dogs a second chance to serve their communities and a second chance at a good life (State Farm).
Each dog that is trained goes through a five-week intensive training program, after they are trained their handler’s then are trained to be their dogs partner and to learn the different signals they need to pick up from their dog (Fitzgerald). Evaluation at the end of the training period utilizes blind testing procedures. ATF’s National Laboratory provides technical and scientific ways to oversee the training and certification process. Every canine must pass the laboratory certification test in order to become a certified canine (ATF).
Training arson dogs is one of the hardest types of dogs to train. They experience different territory and situations at each scene. It is critical that every dog is trained to work in different conditions, especially some of the worst circumstances to prepare them for the worst, regardless of climate, weather conditions, or time of year. They have two different alert systems they may use. A primary alert, which means they sit on or near the source of odor that they have detected.
A secondary alert is when an arson dog uses any means possible to force or pull the handler to the area of where his attention is and then the dog will sniff the area where the accelerant is to

Herrboldt 4 show his handler (Wisegeek). The canines that are trained from State Farm and their handlers are required to complete five weeks of training in Maine. The teams train every day, Paul Gallagher who is the owner and head trainer of Maine Specialty Dogs teaches this intensive program.
These dogs have a strict training method, where the canine is rewarded with food when a successful detection is accomplished. Each canine is required to have many training repetitions during a workday by metering out small portions of food to work the dog for longer time periods.
During a normal training day, ATF canines train with 125 repetitions of smelling accelerant odors, so that within a year they will have trained 45,000 times (ATF).
These canines are never fed without working, such as finding an accelerant odor. The canines work with any trained handler who feeds them. This is an advantage because the canine can work effectively with any properly trained alternate handler when the regular handler is unavailable (ATF).
ATF imprints a canine with an accelerant odor to identify focus areas. The first focus area is that a canine needs to be conditioned to respond to accelerant odors. They respond to this with their positive alert response which is when the canine sits, and rewarded by food. To train, the odor used is usually 50 percent evaporate gasoline, relatively close to what they encounter at scenes. The sample is also placed in a container punctured with holes. As it evaporates and changes composition it exposes the canine to those odors. After conditioning is done, blind tests are completed to see if the canine passes (ATF).
The second focus area is training the canine to respond to an accelerant odor with greater sensitivity than field detection devices. Research has shown that canine’s capabilities are more sensitive than the standard field machine used by investigators (ATF).

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The third focus is that a canine can differentiate between accelerants and similar chemical gases normally present at a fire scene. These canines need to be able to tell the difference between pyrolysis odors and accelerant odors. Blind tests are run to ensure that they can detect the target odor with other odors present. One of the ways they do this is using the four-can matrix. This is when the matrix contains various odors and the canine is rewarded when it alerts to the correct can with no false alerts. ATF holds yearly recertification programs to ensure that these dogs continue to detect correct accelerants in the work field. Fire scenes are also used to test the canines’ skills for odor recognition abilities. This is a mandatory annual training/recertification seminar for each ATF trained canine team. The teams proficiency is tested and the handlers are required to show their training logs from the previous year. These programs include formal training on the latest advances in canine health and safety, legal updates, practical field exercise, and formal testing (ATF).
Giving rewards to these dogs instead of correcting is used for motivation for them. Some of these dogs do their best work when fun is involved with their work. Handlers may have it so that their quiet down-time is at home to keep the dog’s main interest at work. Arson dogs are trained over a period of several weeks. Some programs train the dog first and then train the dog and handler together, others train them at the same time from the start. The handler of any arson dog needs to become a trainer in order to be a good team with his partner, practicing many times each day. The handler needs to make this fun for the dog and keep his interest. Training needs to be done in a variety of locations with different accelerants and scents (Davis).
The handlers of arson dogs are required to do the proper training on their own with their dogs and keep records of training as well as each of their searches, and keep their certification for the team up-to-date (Kathy Diamond Davis). Once the dog has been trained and placed with

Herrboldt 6 their partner, the dog than lives with his/her owner. Handlers have to be able to read a dog’s most solid alert, for example their sit indication, as well as body language during a scene. Dogs may change handlers at some point in their career as an arson dog if their handler leaves the position, because the dog belongs to the agency not the handler (Davis). The dogs are together with their handlers all the time they are part of the family (State Farm).
Most handlers are usually police officers, although there are private investigators, who are self-employed, work for private investigative agencies, or employed by insurance companies use arson dogs as well (Davis).
There are many advantages when police officers and firefighters use Accelerant
Detection Dogs. One of these advantages would be a higher percentage of positive samples which leads to more positive results. Also, fewer samples needed which save money on testing which lessens the time required to process results from fire scenes. As well as all of these other advantages, these dogs are a sufficient tool to help rule out suspicion of the use of accelerants
(Southern Star Ranch). These dogs are a great asset to us and provide information faster and more accurate than machines.
In 1993 the Arson Dog Program was first established with sponsorship from State Farm because of the need for specially trained dogs in America. This program trains over 200 arson dogs that work to fight arson crimes throughout forty-three states in the U.S. plus three provinces of Canada and the District of Columbia (Fitzgerald). State farm has been providing financial support for the training of arson dogs to help stop arson fraud and increase community awareness of the problem. State farm also enlists one to two year old dogs from humane societies and rescues, as well as a rescue from Hurricane Katrina to train them to become arson dogs, which saves some of these dogs from being put down (Wogan). Both ATF and State Farm sponsors

Herrboldt 7 prefer Labradors or Lab – mixes because of their curiosity, energy, tracking ability and easygoing personalities. Guide dog dropouts are also used. The majority of arson dogs in the US are trained and certified under the ATF or State farm (Wogan).
At the Front Royal Canine Training facility in Front Royal Virginia, there is 250 acres of land that these Canines are trained on. Currently they are in the process of constructing training and kennel buildings on the acreage. This building will help to train the canines in this intense program and will help to be able to train indoors during inclement weather. This kennel will be allowed to hold up to 150 canines (ATF).
The arson dog program was designed to incorporate all support systems to maintain the integrity of the program and provide Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies with accurate information. The canine’s indication must never be the only identification of a particular accelerant material but must be followed by a laboratory analysis of the collected sample the canine had found. Because of the sensitive nature of this investigative tool, ATF has additional resources to complement the handlers in the field such as: laboratory analysis, Certified Fire
Investigators, National Response teams, Fire Protection Engineers, the Explosives Incidents
System, automated audit and major case oversight assistance, profiling, and polygraph examinations.
In Florence, Texas, Southern Star Ranch K9 Training Center began training Narcotics and Accelerant detector dogs in 2001. Since that time, several other types of detector dogs have joined the program. Dogs trained by this Ranch have been placed all over North America, South
American and Europe. Positive techniques are used in the training of the dogs. They train by rewarding with toys the dog’s love which makes it a game for them. Aggressive and passive responses are used with these arson dogs, depending on the type of detection they are doing.

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Handler training is done at the Southern Star Ranch with their dog that they purchased and team up with. Handlers of Narcotics, Accelerant, Cadaver and Money Detector Dogs are required to pass a written test, and also a certification trail. This certification is good for one year for both handler and canine.
Maggie, an arson dog, and Chris Konrad first met in January 2010 when they trained for six weeks in Front Royal, Virginia, at the K-9 training center. Konrad works for the DCI. They became certified through the ATF and returned to South Dakota. They renew their certification each year, in the past they have recertified in Portland, Oregon, San Francisco and Front Royal,
Va. Maggie was given to the DCI for free. The ATF owns her, but Konrad is her handler. The
ATF provides equipment, training, food and vet bills for the team. The team trains every day using real life situations as much as possible. On days with unpredictable weather Konrad trains
Maggie inside at the Mitchell Technical and Career Education Academy building. Maggie is a passive-alert dog. It is important to keep Maggie healthy because overweight or unhealthy labs often develop issues like hip dysplasia, which is when a dogs hip joint is improperly formed and the leg moves around too much (Konrad)
At fire scenes, Maggie’s calm demeanor and passive alert signals keep her safe. She carefully moves through a scene. If she were a toy driven dog, like many drug dogs, she would be at risk for injury. It also helps when they enter a burned structure and it is unsafe Maggie can detect that and will sit advising her partner not to enter. They always wait until the scene is clear of fire, cooled down and it is light enough outside to see. Sometimes Maggie will wear booties to protect her feet (Konrad).
Maggie saves a lot of time on fire scenes, whereas it would take fire investigators days to dig through a fire scene to find evidence it take Maggie less than a half hour to find a trace. This

Herrboldt 9 helps investigators concentrate on one area rather than the whole scene. Her nose is more sensitive than the machines they use in the state lab. Maggie has about two years left on her contract of nine years. After her nine years are up it will depend on Konrad, the DCI and
Maggie’s health whether they will continue using her as an arson dog (Konrad).
An arson investigation team, who also has an arson dog working by their side, greatly increases its efficiency and its information is more accurate. This makes the investment well worth it in the eyes of many law enforcement officers (Wisegeek).
These handler/canine teams don’t get the respect and recognition they deserve for all their hard work. These teams are saving lives every day and stopping arson crimes all over the
United States. They both train hard every single day and work long hours on many different cases. They are a big asset to our fire departments and police officers, to find the evidence that these departments need to stop arsonists.