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upright quickly is a good indicator the dog was suddenly caught a whiff of drugs nearby. Closed mouth sniffing is also an
indicator he’s on to something. Individual dogs have their own unique indicators, and their handler being able to recognize
those is what makes the dog and the handler a good K9 Unit.

I trained with a lot of other K9 handlers from other departments, and I got hooked up with some Border Patrol agents and their
dogs who worked out of the Port Angeles office. Their main job there was to work the ferries that went back and forth to Canada
and keep the drug trafficking to a minimum. The agent in charge there was one of the state certifying officials, so not only did
he train Kilo and I some more and help us practice, he was the guy who tested us several months later when we had logged the
required 200 training hours.

The state’s certification test was interesting: it involved searching rooms, then luggage, and then cars. Over the years the
standards and protocols had been established and revised to make it fair and incontestable in court. For example, in the old
days the instructors would tell the handlers “We’ve hidden ten baggies of drugs in these hotel rooms,” and they’d point out
which rooms where involved, usually like 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 rooms. (The instructors would find cooperative hotels who would let
them use some vacant rooms before housekeeping got to them) And then the handlers would go in and have their dogs find the
drugs. But some rooms would have no drugs in them, and some rooms might have two or three stashed in them. So occasionally,
more than few handlers would search, say, 9 rooms, find 9 drug stashes, and then rightfully conclude that the 10th room would
have the 10th stash. But in fact, that last room would sometimes be empty, and that 10th stash was in fact back in room number
7 hidden under the couch, in addition to the stash hidden behind the TV. This kind of a scenario would then commonly result
in the handlers, in frustration and sometimes near panic, becoming convinced that there must that missing stash was in the last
room and so then they’d work their dogs so much in there that the dogs would then pick up on the anxiety and get tired and
then they’d finally just alert on any slightest smelly thing in the room in an attempt to appease their handler, but of course there
were no actual drugs there, and so they’d fail that test for missing a stash, and for making a “false alert.” Over the years a solution
was finally reached, and the new standard was the instructors would advise the handlers “You got 7 rooms to search. Some may
be empty, some may have two or three hides, and we’re not gonna tell you what the total number of hidden drug stashes is.”
That system turned out to work much better. The instructors would make it as random as possible, even rolling dice to come
up with numbers about how many hides, and which rooms got how many, and even which room to start in first. So the
randomness of it meant that sometimes there would be several rooms in a row that were “clean” – which I can personally attest
is very disconcerting to clear 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 rooms in a row without finding anything, because self-doubt really starts coming in
after the 3rd room when the dog has found nothing at all.

The luggage search test is a standard; dogs that work at airports of course search luggage all day long so that one is pretty basic:
A dozen pieces of different kinds of luggage are lined up, and one or more have drugs hidden in them. Kilo usually aced that
part of the test.

The last part is searching cars. Typically done in a junkyard or a public works parking lot where there were lots of cars lined up.
Two sets of cars would be picked out in two different parts of the lot. Some drugs would be hidden in some parts of some of the
cars by some instructors, who would then leave. Another instructor would later check in the K9 unit that was being tested. That
instructor would not know what has been hidden, nor has he even seen the cars, and he will not be present for the searching.
All he would do is flip a coin and then point the K9 team to one part of the lot or the other. Because the instructors had learned
that when they were physically present to grade the exercise, the dogs and or handlers would either subconsciously or knowingly
be able to intuit where some of the hides were. I was able to start figuring that out all by myself during all the practicing and
training I did, pretty early on even. For example, the instructors or experienced handlers would hide some drugs in a big room,
and then when they let in the K9 in there that was training, they’d position themselves in a place where they could easily observe
the dog’s changes of behavior and final alert. So for example, when I was practicing in say, an old school, and we’d go into room
after room, if the instructors stayed out in the hallway on the third room, then that was a pretty clear indication to me that the
third room was going to be empty “blank” with nothing hidden in it. But when an instructor followed us into a room and
stationed themselves in a certain part of the room, then I’d get a clue that something was hidden in a general area. And, based
on where the instructors were looking, I’d get another clue about the general area. So then of course I’d start to really watch to