Remove "jack of all trades" drug dogs.

[Yoshijira]

Short description: Make the drug dog system more realistic by making it more in line with reality, where drug dogs on average are only trained to detect three-four types of drugs and at max five.

Detailed description:  To quote the report that made me want to even make this suggestion:

 

13 hours ago, Yoshijira said:

To begin with, according to various dog handlers over the years as reading from various articles drug dogs usually only end up learning three smells but can however learn up to five. In these instances, these drug dogs are usually trained to engage in learning about drugs that cause more problems for their area. For an area like South Central or even Los Santos as a whole? These tend to be drugs like marijuana, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines and more common and more chemically dangerous drugs.

 

 

And even on that note, even if a dog is trained to smell less olfactory potent drugs, LSD comes to a mind, as non-processed/tainted/contaminated LSD is quite literally odorless, it has to be in a high enough concentration for it to even trigger a dog sussing out the smell.

 

Now. What does this specifically mean in implementation however?

Drugs such as marijuana, heroin, cocaine/crack, methamphetamines end up being basically unaffected. Drug dogs, even especially more-so in LA are trained to pick up at least two to three of these drugs listed. They're common, they're generally viewed as a societal threat and as such law enforcement generally warrants it a necessity to take extra pre-caution towards ensuring that such drugs remain off the streets. As a result? Extra pre-cautions and measures are taken to ensure that such drugs are found and confiscated.

In regards to drugs such as LSD, mushrooms, PCP and ecstasy? Unless a dog is specifically trained to detect such in favor of resources being utilized to train it to pick up other drugs? Then no, your average run of the mill drug dog is not going to be finding these on a usual basis and this should be reflected in game. The only scenario in which I'd imagine a dog such as these are taken out is when they are specifically looking for these drugs, such as during a manufactory bust of such drugs or when police are aware that these goods in specific are being exchanged in bulk.

 

Along with this, even if a dog is trained to find such a drug? Ensuring that there is a large enough amount/concentration of such an illicit substance there that the dog would realistically end up finding it is another necessity.

Commands to add: N/A

Items to add: N/A

How would your suggestion improve the server? Adds further realism to LEO and Illegal RP.

Additional information: N/A

[Cipher]

Current viable alternative for this would be mutual cooperation between the LEO and illegal RPer that's rping on the scene. As to my knowledge, the dog only alerts the handler that there is 'a drug', and doesn't specify what type or how many drugs are in there. So, the handler, in my opinion should just PM the illegal RPer something akin to "Hey, our dog tags some drugs in your car/smth, can you tell us what type and realistically how much?", and if the drug specified isn't something that would've normally could get tagged by the dog (e.g. odorless, unprocessed LSD), the illegal RPer should inform them that, and the LEO RPer should RP accordingly. Just a thought tho.

[Yoshijira]

4 minutes ago, Cipher said:

Current viable alternative for this would be mutual cooperation between the LEO and illegal RPer that's rping on the scene. As to my knowledge, the dog only alerts the handler that there is 'a drug', and doesn't specify what type or how many drugs are in there. So, the handler, in my opinion should just PM the illegal RPer something akin to "Hey, our dog tags some drugs in your car/smth, can you tell us what type and realistically how much?", and if the drug specified isn't something that would've normally could get tagged by the dog (e.g. odorless, unprocessed LSD), the illegal RPer should inform them that, and the LEO RPer should RP accordingly. Just a thought tho.

"[20:24:14] (( PM to (420) [blanked]: Hey man, just for clarification, can dogs fr smell the LSD IG? ))
[20:24:29] (( PM to (420) [blanked]: Since LSD is generally regarded as an odorless drug. ))

[20:24:34] (( PM from (420) [blanked]: yessir according to our canine manual ))
[20:24:40] (( PM from (420) [blanked]: i double checked for the detectives ))"

Edited February 25, 2021 by Yoshijira

[Pathway]

sure, but whats stopping criminals from abusing this? no support -1

[SULLI]

After doing a tiny bit of research on this, no. Unless that dog is specifically trained to pick up on impurities found in the chemicals of LSD. It's VERY rare to have a dog on your scene that can do it. The suggestion here should be more so "Remove LSD from the K9 sniffing script." That'd solve this issue on the spot. When we do the command, there is no indicator on what it's hitting on, it just alerts that there are drugs in the car or on a person inside.

[Red.]

Background: I regularly work with drug dog handlers. Friends with a few of them. Ran this by a K9 handler I know. Took a second to explain that I'm not trying to help Euros with international drug running lol.

 

Tl;dr - Not unrealistic at all in the States. One dog can be trained on LSD and other substances, and cross-training between a half dozen substances minimum is not uncommon anymore due to departments trying to get the most value out of one dog. Although most focus is on heroin/crack/meth/weed in one dog, LSD detection is not unheard of and has been utilized in a lot of areas.

 

However, and quoting him - "If you want the ultimate drug dog then you’ll have to spend at least a year or two training it to make it efficient."

 

Edit: Worth noting that the power of the script is also why there are heavy limits on how many dogs we can have in-game, what they can do, etc. It's already regulated and scrutinized by staff to a large degree.

Edited February 25, 2021 by Redman.

[Fireworks]

Currently as it stands within the LSSD, all narcotic dogs are brought in after several years of training. This supports Redman's reply above.

 

Our narcotic dogs are trained to detect four categories of drugs, including hallucinogens which LSD falls under. I don't feel as though there needs to be any change to the script nor roleplay here.

 

It is not impossible for an experienced, well trained canine dog to be able to detect "scentless" hallucinogens.

[Scorch]

Hi there. I am a working dog handler IRL and work with both patrol, and various search capable dogs. I have worked work explosive search (Who also search for weapons) as well as drug detection dogs.

 

The first point to look at here is the idea that these dogs are only capable of remembering four or five target scents. I am not sure where you got your information from, but this is simply not true. My own working dog, who is trained in weapons and explosives, is able to detect a wide variety of target scents from military grade explosives, to commercial grade explosives like the ones used in mining, and homemade explosives. He is also able to detect weapons based off of a number of various scents that are somewhat unique to a weapon, such as GSR, or gun oil (Gun oil is one of the ways they get you when you haven't even fired the weapon) There are various different explosive products and target scents that fall into each of theses categories, but I can assure you, it is not just four or five that they detect, more like twenty to thirty, and we are regularly training the dogs to find new target scents.

 

On the note of LSD, this is something drug detection dogs are trained on, extensively. While LSD may be considered odourless, humans have just five million scent receptors on average, whereas a dog has an average of around three hundred million. This combined with how a dogs olfactory system is constructed, allows a dog to detect scents at concentrations up to one hundred million times less than a human would be able to detect. As for locating the scent and where it comes from, this is down to how the dogs take in air and scent through their nose. Unlike humans, who simply breath in and out of their nose using the same passage, dogs take in air and scent through the nostrils, but expel air through the slits in the side of their nose/nostrils. This creates swirls of air that only help to pull in more odour molecules to give a better sent picture. They are also able to use each nostril independently, much like how chameleons can use both eyes independently. This allows them to track where exactly the scent is coming from and follow the scent to it's source.

 

You made one last point at the end of your suggestion about the quantities of drugs present before they can be detected by the dogs. Drug Detection dogs are also trained with something we call Soaks, these are simply items that have been in contact with the target scent (one way of creating a soak is simply keeping the soak in a box, alongside the target scent. The target scent would not be just loose powder, but in a sealed bag.) One of the soaks we use is actually a small page of stickers, each only about half the size of a fingernail, if not smaller, and the dog will still locate this with some guidance from the handler.

 

Now, onto the point you may like a little better. Dogs are not robots, they are not perfect and like humans, they will make mistakes. They may pick up on scent, but not indicate it to their handler. They may even miss the scent altogether due to being distracted. Dogs can have off days too. So, my suggestion to you would be not to suggest limiting the scents that the PD and SD dogs can detect, but instead suggest that a 5% or 10% failure chance be added to the script, so that even if a dog sniffs you, there is a chance they will not indicate on the scent. I personally would argue that this is an unrealistically high failure rate, but I am thinking of the enjoyment of the game for everyone here.

 

I hope this information is helpful to this suggestion, if anyone has questions on the subject, feel free to ask away.

 

 

[Miggs]

19 minutes ago, Scorch said:

On the note of LSD, this is something drug detection dogs are trained on, extensively.

Literally looking up ‘can drug dogs smell/detect LSD’ will show that it can’t be smelled or detected by drug dogs. the average dose of LSD is 100-200 ug or about .0001 grams per tab. there’s no way a dog could smell this. It’d require there to be vials upon vials opened of pure LSD liquid for a dog trained to smell it to alert. 

[Scorch]

Hi there, appreciate the concern here. But while you have looked up whether dogs can find LSD, I have experienced it first hand, carrying the drug in tab form while acting as a training assistant to another handler. The dog did indeed find the drug in my possession.

 

I will agree however, that it is one of the harder scents to train a dog on, so perhaps my idea of having a failure rate on the detection could be a little higher for LSD.