Airline Security Now Includes A Stroll Past A Police K-9
I've traveled quite a bit and have been subjected to many airline security measures. I understand that the ways of the world is why we now have to walk through a metal detector, send our purses, murses and laptops through an x-ray machine and yes, now be sniffed by a dog.
I am a self-proclaimed animal (especially dogs) lover, you need to know this to understand
my husband’s words and actions. While standing in a rather long but expected security line at the Minneapolis airport I noted that there was a black and white picture of a dog on a sign and said to my husband “puppy”, as I always do when I see a canine, live or pictured. He in turn did what he always does, rolled his eyes. Little did we know the “puppy” I was referring to was a Springer Spaniel K9 sniffing security dog that we would be encountering in minutes (more minutes than we cared to wait, but what cha gonna do?). They told us to walk normally past the dog, don’t pet the him and let the dog sniff you, your personal item or basically whatever he wished. I was secretly glad that I hadn’t pocketed a handful of treats to bring to our friend’s dogs in Florida where we were going to visit, because I actually had thought about it. He was ADORABLE (insert husband’s eye roll) and boy was he sniffing. He sniffed everyone that walked by him, then they would circle him around for a second sniff. I’m proud to say he nudged my hand with his nose, because I AM a dog whisperer. Later I found out he was sniffing hands for specific smells he’s been trained to detect. He was working hard, everyone, even children his level were sniffed out. FYI, for those of you that do the TSA pre-screening, it didn’t appear they had to deal with being sniffed, that was my observation. But, since I’m a dog lover, I didn’t mind being sniffed!