With his nose to the ground, Roni frantically sniffs around several silver paint cans. He comes across one that catches his attention and promptly sits down. “Good boy,” says his handler Domenic Capotorto, GTAA Canine Unit Officer, as he tosses him his toy – a reward for a job well done.

On October 8, the GTAA’s Canine Unit as well as officers from the Toronto Police Services, York Region Police Services and Guelph Police Services were in explosives detection training for two new odours.

Gerard O’Sullivan from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fire Arms and Explosives (ATF) in the United States brought his dog as well as the new scents and a new training method for the dogs to learn.

“The training exercise is to get the dogs used to the new odour that’s the flavour of the day for terrorists,” Capotorto said. “The exercise imprints the ‘hot’ odour in the dog’s brain so that they’ll be able to identify it in the future.”

This was the first time ATF has come to GTAA, although GTAA officers have an ongoing relationship with the agency and have travelled to U.S. to train.

The dogs are put through several different exercises where they must identify the ‘hot’ odour located within the cans from a variety of other scents which included from baby powder, cotton balls and dryer sheets. Frequent training of new scents and methods keep the dog’s minds fresh and active. And it doesn’t take very long for the scent to be imprinted in the dog’s brain. After a few rounds through the training course, most dogs were correctly identifying the new odour.

With the addition of the 2 new scents, GTAA Explosives Detection dogs can now identify 20 different odours of active ingredients found in explosives and firearms today.