multipliers that help our border security officers maximize their effectiveness. oftentimes these are high-tech, they are drones, they are fixed-wing aircraft, helicopter, night vision cameras, surveillance cameras, motion detecters, you name it. but also sometimes we find out that our officers get critical help from some low-tech friends and think of the horses that guide the border patrol, done you remember that visit down on the texas border with mexico. border agents trying to make =7ñ horseback and fortunately because the horse is able to do a much better job. then we find there are those gifted dogs, some of whom we're going to meet today, help find things and threats visible to us as human beings. as we will hear and perhaps even see, we'll see i think later in the hearing, some of our

specially trained dogs, how they can detect people or things that humans and machines just miss. canines are already at work as we know aross roscross a number programs. for instance, dhs dogs -- use dogs to check for explosives in our airports and trains like the up i took today. we also see dogs hard at work between ports of entry, they attempt to detect illegal entry of people and of goods. we know special abilities after these animals already contributed to our homeland security. for example, canine teams are credited with helping cvp seize 4,500 pounds of heroin last fiscal year. dogs helped to track thousands of migrants along the southwest border of our country, discovered 38 people hiding in vehicles passing through ports of entry. other dogs detect illicit plants or animals, some help find human remains near our borders.

security is not their only mission. dogs are also valuable in search and rescue following natural disasters. this is an area where i'm not sure we're doing enough to take advantage of their capabilities. at the same time, these valuable tools are not free. dogs with the proper abilities and temperament to conduct searches are expensive to buy and even more expensive to train and to deploy effectively. we'll hear about that today. as with all of our security investments, we must make sure we're deploying these canine teams in the most cost-effective way. today we're going to hear about some of the open questions regarding canine teams. i think in particular, gao has taken a hard look at tsa's canine program, raising some questions about how and where they are trained and deployed and while tsa has successfully addressed some of gao's earlier concern, i understand some other questions remain and maybe we'll have a chance to hear those today. i look forward to hearing from both agencies about the current status of your canine programs and the plans for the future. we also need to drill todown on

what canines can and cannot accomplish and what information is needed to make sure we're making the right investments in these force multipliers. it's going to be an interesting hearing. we look forward to it. thank you all for joining us. >> thank you, senator carper. i don't know about your beagles, but my beagle did not realize he was a dog, he was just a younger brother, actually sat up in a chair. so, anyway -- >> i thought one of these dogs was going to try to get in that chair over there and look for a mike, reach the mike, but it didn't happen. >> so it is tradition of this committee to swear in witnesses. if you'll all rise and raise your right hand. do you swear the testimony you'll give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? >> i do. >> please be seated. >> let's start with testimony, we're waiting for at least one

or two additional members to come, but in they don't, i also want to make sure we get the dogs before they get restless. we may interrupt in between witnesses. our first witness is kimberly hutchinson, deputy assistant administrator for the office of training, transportation security administration, the tsa. in her capacity, she oversees tsa's technical and leadership training, workforce development, and engagement programs. miss hutchinson? >> thank you, sir. chairman johnson, ranking member carper, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding tsa's canine training program. tsa procures, trains and deploys both tsa-led and state and local law enforcement-led canine teams to secure our nation's transportation systems. congress recognized the value of the canine program through its continued support and funding. it's kushtly the largest explosives canine program in dhs and second largest in federal

government, 997 funded canine teams currently stationed at more than 100 of our nation's airports, mass transtransit, an cargo environments. the success of tsa's canine program is a prime example of federal, state, and local government entities working together. given the security value of explosive detection canines, tsa must end sure a reliable and adequate supply of canines. an interagency agreement with the department of defense which supplies tsa with approximately 230 canines each year. tsa partners with d.o.e. on both stateside venters and oversea buying trips ensuring tsa needs are met. tsa is exploring trained and untrained canines. tsa's goal is an additional 20 trained canines and 20 untrained canines suitable for passenger screening in 2016 through this

initiati initiative. the agency pairs it with a federal, states, or local handler to be trained to operate in the aviation, multimodal, maritime, mass transit or cargo environments. the majority of canine teams are a canine and state or local law enforcement officer. for those teams, tsa provides and trains the dog, trains the handler, provides training aids and explosive storage magazines and conducts annual on-site violations of these canines. tsa partially reimburses each agency for operational costs associated with maintaining the ste taems and in return the law enforcement agencies agree to use their canines in their assigned environment for 90% of the handler's duty time. in addition to state and local led teams, tsa inspectorses lead canine teams including passenger screening canine teams specifically trained to detect explosive odor on passengers in a checkpoint environment in addition to explosives detection

role. tsa travels across the country to tsa's canine training center located in san antonio, texas, to be paired with a canine and complete training. they learn in a very intense environment and variety of explosives based on intelligence data and emerging threats. to tomorrow, a ribbon-cutting ceremo ceremony. approximately 30 days after graduating from the training program and returning to its duty station, each canine team undergoes an assessment. upon successful completion of the assessment, canine teams are then evaluated on an annual basis under the most stringent of applicable certification standards. t sarks allocat tsa allocates canines utilizing risk-based criteria. passenger screening canine teams

are critical and are deployed to operate during peak periods at 40 of our nation's largest airports where they have the opportunity to screen tens of thousands of passengers every day. tsa is working to train and certify all of its 322 canine teams in both passenger screening and traditional explosive detection screening by the end of fy '17. in addition to deployments at passenger screening checkpoints, tsa and law enforcement-led teams conduct a variety of search and high visibility activities that address potential threats in the transportation domain including visible intermodal prevention and response operations or viprs. the government accountability office, dhs inspector general, and other independent testers have proven canine teams to be one of the most effective means of detecting explosives. canine teams are critical to tsa's focus on security effectiveness. t sarks continues to develop its canine training program to maximize contribution to transportation security. lastly, i'd like to thank all of the hardworking men and women

canine handlers across the nation's transportation system who keep us safe every day as well as the very dedicated staff that support the program and train our canines down in lockland. thank withdrew fyou for the oppo discuss this important program, and i think forward to your questions. >> thank you, miss hutchinson. our next program is damian montes, director of the canine program at u.s. customs and border protection, cbp. mr. montes started his career in the united states supreme corps, graduated from the department of defense dog handler course. he's a former handler. >> good morning, chairman johnson, ranking member carper. thank you for the opportunity to appear today and talk about the u.s. customs and border protection canine training program. i'm director of the cvp canine training program, administrate ef and operational oversight of two canine delivery centers. one located in front royal, virginia, the other in el paso,

texas. the cvp canine program is a fusion of two legacy training facilities. the legacy u.s. customs canine enforcement training center, u.s. border national canine facility. the merger of these two training entities afforded the cvp canine training program to build on decades of expertise and law enforcement training and capitalize on best practices. cvp canine training senters are where canine, handlers, instructors receive classroom and practical training and canine discipline yutilized, addressing cross-border elicit activities including gun and currency smuggling, narcotic smuggling, human trafficking and smuggling and illegal immigration. the cvp canine training program delivers several courses for handlers and instructors, to support the mission in multiple operational environments. these courses include concealed human and narcotic detection, currency and firearms detection, human remains cadaver=r6cs dete, tracking and trailing, search and rescue, patrol, and

recertification instructor course. our training cadre is cvp law enforcement officers and agents also known as course developer instructors who come to us from existing field canine units and serve a three to five year instructor detail. i must highlight the significance of having subject matter -- recent and relative field experience deliver canine training and instruction to the next generation of canines, handlers, and instructors. the evaluavalue they contributee program's mission is immeasurable. furthermore, recruiting experienced canine instructors from within the ranks of cvp ensures a continuity of expertise and availability of training opportunities. the course developer instructors who work at our training centers bring with them not only the passion of being a canine handler, but being part of a specialized unit that provides a unique and valuable capability to cvp's frontline law

enforcement anythimission. i would be remiss not to mention ore support staff, veterinarians, animal technicians, animal caretakers, mission support personnel who play an integral part in ensuring the effectiveness and delivery of our training. the training program can be accredited with training some of the best canine teams that work at any of our international boarding crossin border crossings. the cvp canine officers and agents who work with the training program have also asised in capacity-building initiatives with the office of international affairs in developing and delivering canine training for our international partners. furthermore, our training centers are available to federal, state, and low law enforcement agencies wanting to receive formal training and certification in any of the canine training disciplines we deliver. the canine team is an invaluable asset to the operation of border, environments. regardless of the presence of oath e detection technologies,

providing an unmatched law enforcement capability to address the ever-changing challenges and threats. over the past three years, cvp canine training program, under the oversight of the office of training and development, ensured cvp kcanine training center have ensured certification and overall training provides the standard and fidelity that meets the vvp operational needs and requirements. as border conditions and enforcements have ever changed over the past 30 years or more, cvp's law enforcement canine teams remain constant, reliable. invaluable asset to our nation's security. each and every day they demonstrate and validate their importance through numerous seizures and detections. i'm hob honored to be part of the cvp canine program, appreciate the opportunity to share our efforts today and i'm happy to answer any questions. >> thank you, director montes. our next witness, jennifer grover. director grover is director in the homeland security and justice team at the u.s.

government accountability office, gao. she oversees gao's reviews of tsa programs and operations. director grover? >> good morning, chairman johnson, ranking member carper. thank you for the opportunity to discuss tsa's implementation of their canine program. tsa has funding for 997 canine teams. they include conventional can e canines, which are trained to detect explosives in stationary objects such as vehicles and baggage. passenger screening canines known as pscs, explosives carried by a person. when fully deployed tsa canines will be paired with 675 law enforcement handlers and 322 tsa handlers. following gao's 2013 report and recommendations, tsa made significant improvements to its canine program. first, tsa enhanced its use of

data to monitor the program performance. as an example, field canine coordinators now regularly analyze the covert testing data to determine the root causes of team failure so they can be addressed. second, tsa demonstrated passenger screening canine teams reliably identify explosives and determine they should be placed at the passenger checkpoint queues to have the greatest impact. third, tsa deployed pse teams to the highest risk airports. one important issue remains for tsa's consideration based o on our prior work. when tsa conducted its initial effectiveness assetment of specialized passenger screening canines, it also carried out one f the search exercises with three conventional canine teams. those are the teams that don't receive the specialized training. the results suggested that the conventional canines might be as effective as the canines with

the pse training at detecting explosives on people under some scenarios. we recommended tsa should test whether the passenger screening canines provide an enhanced security benefit relative to the conventional canines and thus whether the cost of that additional training is warranted. tsa officials told us they didn't plan to carry out the assessment citing concerns about the temperament of the conventionally trained canines and potential liability risk to the agency if it operated conventional canines in a passenger screening environment for which they had not been trained. we respect t sarks's concerns on these issues and encourage tsa to consider multiple option for going forward with this testing. some conventional canines are suitable breeds. initial assessments could take place in a testing environment with role players instead of actual passengers and conventionally trained canines could be trained to operate at the checkpoint.

we continue to believe this assessment is warranted. if the results show that conventional canines are equally as effective as passenger screening canines, tsa could save resources currently spent on the specialized training. regarding the magnitude of the potential savings, in our 2013 study, the difference in tsa startup costs between the passenger screening and conventional l canine was $19,000 per canine. tsa's update for this hearing indicates the difference in startup costs shrunk to $5,000 per canine which clearly reduces the potential for savings. based on tsa's numbers, the savings could still be as much as $1.5 million each time the full set of tsa-led canines is retired and placed. that's a very small fraction of tsa's annual spending for the canine program, but still represents a potential

opportunity for tsa to be more efficient with its limited resources. finally, whether or not the extra pse training turns out to make a difference, tsa could realize additional savings if some of the canines were paired with law enforcement handlers instead of tsa handlers. since t sarsa covers salary, benefits and vehicle expenses for its own handlers, the annual cost for tsa is $100,000 more than a team led by a law enforcement officer. in 2013, tsa officials told us they were considering this approach but to this point tsa has not paired passenger screening -- chairman johnson, ranking member carper, thank you for opportunity to testify and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, director grover. our final witness is dr. cynthia otto. dr. otto is the founder, executive director or the vet working center at the university of pennsylvania. her research focuses on canine

health and behavior. dr. otto has been involved with search and rescue dogs, pennsylvania urban search and rescue task force including deployments to hurricane katrina and during 9/11. dr. otto? >> thank you, good morning, chairman johnson and ranking member carper. it is a pleasure to be here. i'd like to introduce one of the dogs to the program. 10 1/2-week-old german shepherd born in texas. he's donated to our program. his name is jerry. like all the dogs donated to our programs he's named after one of the dogs that worked at 9/11. he's been handled by a veterinary student from penn vet, meagan ramos. you'll be able to meet him after the hearing and learn more about his future career. we're a not for profit research and development center for detection dogs. our program was developed based

on our experience with a wide variety of organizations including d.o.d., atf, fema, cbp, tsa, police canine departments, the seeing eye, puppies behind bars, and even pet dog training. our scope of work focuses on the genetic, environmental, behavioral and physical characteristics that lead to successful detection performance. since dogs enter our program at eight weeks of age, our unique emphasis includes the impact of early development and enhancing the career success of these dogs. our training philosophy is rooted in positivehancing the d program. they attend school five days a week to learn job skills but live with foster families life and weekends to learn life skills. we operate based on a hypothesis-driven method rather than a belief system.

consistent with the theme of our upcoming working dog conference, working dogs 360, a multidisciplinary approach, we welcome ideas from all sectors. we then evaluate and collect data to test these hypotheses and determine what works best for each dog, each discipline, and each program. we embrace the opportunities that arise when things don't go as planned which is often. we actually find that some of these opportunities are the most valuable learning experiences that we have and in the case of the dogs, we all it a training opportunity. from this perspective, the key points that i would like to highlight for the committee are, one, that dogs have great value in preserving national security, and two, there are strategies that as a nation on which we can come together and will facilitate the success of the dogs in this vital mission. i think the first fact that is undisputed is that the ability of dogs to smell and identify

minute quantities of odor far exceeds that of humans. and most machines. the other universal fact across agencies is that one of the biggest challenges to canine programs is the availability of dogs that have the physical and behavioral characteristics necessary to perform the tasks needed. one of the major reasons for the shortage of quality dogs is that we rely heavily on procurement of dogs from other countries. by outsourcing our national security requirements, we give up control of the type of dogs, the health of the dogs, and the early training of the dogs. we also are at risk for supply interruption. due to politics, disaster, or disease. given that we know many of the desirable traits are controlled by genetics and continuous improvements can be made through selective breeding, letting these decisions be made by organizations that don't have our best national interests

foremost, we are, again, putting ourselves at risk. the research in our program and others have shown that factors during development of dogs have an important impact on behavior and health including the length of their working careers. again, without having control or input over this aspect of the dogs' lives increases the risks of shortened working life or failed careers. so how do we best leverage the scientific knowledge in genetics, development, behavior, and health? to us, a national breeding program is a priority. the critical features of a programmatic success include both superior dog performance and sound economics. the goal is to create a cooperative that provides dogs to all of the programs that support national security. to achieve this, all organizations need to communicate and work together to identify the genetic and behavioral characteristics of the dogs that meet their

requirements. so we feel that this would represent a center of excellence which is classic in the homeland security. so i'd like to thank you for your attention and welcome any questions. >> thank you, dr. otto. we are expecting three more members, they're saying within fif minu five minutes, but that's senate time. i want to tgo back to you, dr. otto, because i want to get some sense of how many trained dogs are yut lized in the united states for seeing eye purposes, other specialized purposes as well as law enforcement. do you have any feel for the total number of specialized trained dogs? >> the specialized trained dogs is an open question. so many new areas especially if we're talking in the service dog field, talking about seeing eye, autism support dogs and other dogs. through swig dog, i know they were estimating somewhere between 40,000 and 80,000 dogs

used. remember ding dogs when they're employed, they have a fixed life span. even if we can improve their working life, we're going to improve the cost effectiveness. >> is that eight to nine years? >> eight to nine is pretty typical. some organizations will retire dogs at nine years of age just as a fixed -- most dogs don't start until they're about two so they may have a short career as seven, even less depending -- >> the service dogs are really completely different from a standpoint of training and their specialty, correct? >> absolutely. the service dogs have taught us a lot about the selective breeding. they've taught us a lot about how to train some of these dogs, but they're very different dogs. they're kind of the opposite end of the spectrum from the high energy hunting-driven dogs that we're looking at here. >> we breed those here in the united states. >> correct. most of the service dog programs do have their own breeding programs. the seeing eye, canine compan n companions for independence, they have really large breeding

programs. >> between tsa and cbp, i've got abo about 2,500 canine units, is that accurate, 1,000 with the tsa, 1, 00, 1,500 in cbp? >> yes, sir. >> do you have any idea how many specialized canine units and conventional law enforcement? >> at this time i don't, sir. do we have another member? this is it. as long as we have a quorum for our demonstration, let's proceed with that. i think we're going to start with tsa. >> we have reverso, canine, labrador out of dca. his handler, doug timberlake. what we're going to simulate here is it's a tsa checkpoint. essentially your staffs are p s passengers.

there's one passenger who has a training aid explosive on him. here's reve arso and doug. what you'll see doug doing is giving some search gestures to reverso here as the passengers come through and then you'll see very quickly what passenger has that live explosive on them. okay. >> are the passengers coming? >> i think they're here. >> okay. >> okay. so we've got our passengers coming through the checkpoint here. we're going to see reverso start to work, use his nose. yep. and there you go. so if you notice, he locked in on the passenger with the briefcase very quickly then he was immediately rewarded with his tennis ball which is his reward of choice. >> and the briefcase had what in it? >> it had an explosive. >> okay. >> how many times is that

wrapped? >> it's safe. >> i'll move into other questions because that's what amazed me, university of pennsylvania, how it's just almost impossible to wrap these things enough. it is impossible. okay. our next one, director montes, can you kind of describe what we're going to be seeing in this next demonstration? >> yes, this is miss jones and her canine, hudson. so, miss hudson and -- i'm sorry, canine hudson is trained to find five different types of items. in the airport environment, they're going to be screening a passenger environment for any type of illegal agriculture products. >> and you planted some illegal agriculture products somewhere? >> yes, we did. >> i'm a real rule follower. >> she responded. she sat down.

>> so she's located it. >> yeah, if you look right over the edge, you can see it. what they have is an apple. >> looks harmless enough. [ inaudible ] right. right. so that was agricultural product. we have another demonstration. >> we have a currency firearms dog coming in, this is mr. dowling and his. your aides will have something planted on them. will identify which one is carrying the currency.

so as the passengers just come through, he'll start screening them with the canine. and so once he identifies that there's something there that shouldn't be there, i.e. the contin contra band, he's going to go ahead and respond then he's going to get his toys reward. and pats of indication. what he gave him right now is a pvc pipe. >> guess whatever works. >> yeah. >> well, thank you, thank you very much. >> i would have thought he'd respond to that blue suit, but that shows how well trained they are. well, again, thank you. i will say as impressive as that demonstration is, going to the university of pennsylvania or seeing them really on the job,

it's even -- it's dramatically more impressive. what they're able to do. so let's pick up where we left off. thanks, senator. because i want to get back to, you know, actually supplying the chain and how many dogs we really would like to have and how many we could really employ. so, again, we're talking about within tsa and cvp, about 2,500 canine units now. how many would you like to have? i mean, is that kind of adequate for the task? or could we utilize a lot more? we'll start with you, director montes. >> so, i'll start with the question. that would be an operational requirement to determine both components based on their needs of the service to identify what would be their optimal number as far as what would assist their multilayer approach as far as enforcement operations. on our side of the fence, as far as the training operations, our

requirement is to be able to develop the capacity and capability to deliver those dogs onces demands, needs, requirements are addressed. >> do you get a sense working with the other folks in your agency that there's a greater demand? i mean, is there always demand for what you're trying to do, or, again, there may not be demand because there's not the budget for it. >> the current demand as it stands right now, you have the operational floors, 1,113, as well as the officer field operations which currently right now is -- i'll tell you that number. 481. and so -- so those numbers are still vacancies in the field we're still trying to go ahead and backfill those positions, so we haven't reached that floor yet. so it would pretty much determine on the components, determine how much higher they would want to two after all those positions are filled. >> so you're saying you're 481 one short right now? >> no, sir, those are the positions. >> okay. how many short are you?

>> so 25 positions right now for the field operations and 300 for the board. >> so a pretty good shortage. miss hutchinson, do you have a sense in terms of tsa, in terms of what the -- you know, if you could have everything you'd about, provide the security that we're really looking for in this country, what's your sense? >> i think that's sort of the million-dollar question. i think today we have 997 teams throughout the nation, so what we've been doing within that group of teams that are currently funded is figuring out how we can really maximize them, so as you saw that pse capability, we rolled that out in 2011, 5 years ago, fairly recent for this. we're learning how to best utilize their time screening passengers, deploying them at those peak periods. we're trying to maximize with what we have. moving forward, i'd see more canines as part of the security.

>> 997, 300 are doing passenger screening, others are deployed with other local law enforcement agencies. what are they doing? transportation. trains and bus stations. is it all transportation-related? >> that's right. they service all the modes. you'd see them potential he on amtraks, buses, transit, yes. many of them are also deployed in aviation. to your question earlier about the supply, we lose 13% of our dogs a year, 150 either retire for aging out or physical things so we need to buy about 230 a year to sustain the current operations and have found a good supply, if you will, of the dogs we need. however, we're going through this process of trying to procure more dogs domestically, if we had a surge we'd be able to buy quicker and bring on dogs into the program more quickly. >> now, the ones aren't used for passenger screening in airports, those are being handled by local law enforcement officials then? you're supplying the local -- >> that's correct. we train the dogs and the

handlers. we work in partnership with them today. yeah. so, many of the -- if we have an unattended bag, as example, we would call law enforcement for resolving that. >> so, dr. otto, we obviously breed a lot of dogs in this country, and, i mean, what's the secret sauce in terms of the european breeders that we're only going there? i mean, what's preventing us from breeding them here in the united states? >> i think it's tradition, and i think it's also where the -- why dogs are being bred in this country. in eastern europe, which is the major source of most of our working dogs, they have a long history of breeding dogs for work. whether it's specifically for work or even competitions that are work-related. in this country, we tend to breed dogs for pets and for show and those are not the same kinds of dogs that we need for this kir kind of work. so in order to breed dogs in this country for this kind of work, we have to look at what we are selecting.

a lot of our labradors are coming from hupti inin inhuntin at least a domestic resource. even so, they're breeding for different reasons. we're lucky when we get some of these dogs that are very successful. we need to think about what are our goals physically, behaviorally, that support the tasks that these dogs are doing? and it's not always what the breeders who are competing or hunting with their dogs are breeding for, so identifying those traits, identifying if they're heritable so we can selectively improve the physical and behavioral characteristics of the dogs. >> i'll pick up on this next round. senator carper? >> first a couple lighthearted questions. i was -- i noted that the dogs that got a reward for their search efforts, one dog's reward was a tennis ball. another dog's reward was a piece of pvc pipe.

what is the role, the importance of the reward? how are they selected? and do dogs react if they have the wrong reward, no reward? i presume they act differently. who chooses the reward? is it good for a lifetime? give us a little bit -- just really quickly on that. >> absolutely. so our primary reward is a toy. it's toy-driven for the canines. they either have a rubber pipe, pvc pipe. depends on what the dog really enjoys to work for. that's his paycheck at the end of the day. if there's a canine that, protection, uses a pvc pipe which he enjoys at this point but at some point in training decides, hey, i like the rubber better than the other one, it would transition. the idea is we want the canine to be able to work and want to be able to need that drive toward root reward so that canine continually, continually produces over his course of his service life. >> all right. how long -- how many years on average do these dogs serve? >> so our canines primarily are

between seven and nine years old. >> what is the average life span of a dog that does this kind of work. >> the average lifetime depends on the canine, sir. currently we have some dogs still in service at 11 years old. obviously we want to make sure we have a quality of life for our canines. we make high demands from our canines in the field so want to make sure we have a process in place to retire them at a suitable age to have a quality retired life after. their lifetime depends on the individual canine, sir. >> okay. there are other agencies that have canine programs in the department, and, for example, i think just within dhs, you've got fema where they use canine teams to conduct search and rescue operations. federal protective service. i think deploys dogs to sweep federal buildings looking for explosi explosives. would -- i don't know who i should ask this, we'll start with you, damian. could you just describe for us, if you could, any department-wide efforts within dhs to share best practices and to find efficiencies in order to

improve the respective programs? >> 3"/esure. i've been in this position for the last 2 1/2 years and sinces i've been in this position, we've conducted numerous outreach to how to improve our program or share best practices with others. we've met with tsa, we've also met with miss otto. on different occasions to identify ways we have in our program we can improve on. visited lackland air force base d.o.d. as far as shared tactics, we do, or shared facilities, we do extend our training availability to local, federal, and state law enforcement agencies. so we are constant lly working with them as well to support either their canine to start a program or to advance or evolve their current program and existence. >> all right. thank you. i was struck, dr. otto, by your testimony where you mentioned that many of the errors made by canine teams aren't the error

made by the dog but by the human handler. what are the requirements and limitations of a good human handler and how well are we training that half of the canine team? >> so i think that's a really great point that it's a team -- >> can you say that again? say that again. >> the dog, the handler, the team -- >> not many of our witnesses say that, do they, mr. chairman? >> oh, this, great point, it's a very good point. excellent point. >> thank you. >> so the team is really critical and the dog, a lot of times we actually get in the way of the dog. and it really is something that we have to be paying very close attention to. when you have a team that works in syncrony, it's like watching dancers because they're so good at reading each other. that's our goal. a lot of times we do focus on the dog side of it and we're not paying as much attention to training the handler. in our program, we try to help our dogs work as independently as possible.

and i think that's a lot of the goals here, too, especially with the passenger screening canines that they really do need to work more independently. so i think those are goals that most organizations are working toward, but i think we still have a ways to go in finding our best handlers, training our handlers in the best way possible and making sure the team is working well together. >> okay. thank you. another question, this might be for you, miss hutchinson, but a question about metrics. what metrics, if any, exist to indicate that the passenger screening canine training provides an added security benefit in return for the additional costs, and how is the passenger screening canine certification standard developed? >> so we've been developing sort of the standard in the last five years, and really it's a training and certification st standard so in terms of met rickrick metrics, the reason we know

these dogs are effective, very high rate on an annual basis by a third party, snt helps us, de helps us in the evaluation process. we train the dogs on the odors to make sure they're proficient. a dog like reverso has to certify every 35 days an all of those odors. if he doesn't, he comes out of the operation and gets retrained, in you will. those evaluations during the year and certification at the end of the year. >> okay, thanks. if i could, miss glover, in your testimony, you talked about some of the recommendations maybe the gao has made to improve these programs. would you just mention, again, i think you did, but maybe a recommendation or two that has not been fully implemented, has not been accepted, and let's just talk about that for a minute. >> sure. tsa has done a terrific job

addressing the vast majority of our recommendations, and we completely agree that robust data exists to show that the passenger screening canines are effective at detecting explosives. you know, there's a range. there are -- the data show there are some airports and some teams that don't do as well as others, and so hopefully tsa will follow up on that information and make sure that they're providing support to the teams that need it so that they can continue to improve. but the question that remains for gao is whether or not it's the extra specialized passenger screening training that makes the pse canines effective or whether they could do just as well with the conventional training that all the canines receive. in, you know -- that's what the regular law enforcement handlers and their canines receive as well. >> okay. my time is expired. as the chairman mentioned

earlier, we also are going to a bunch of committees and subcommittees. a number of those are in session. i'm going to slip out and go to one, learn more about implementing the trans-pacific trade partnership in the finance committee. i want to say thank you, again, mr. chairman, for pulling this all together. thanks especially to reverso, hudson, nicky, their handlers and each who vocalized and verbalized on behalf of our canine friends. thank you so much. >> thanks, senator carper. let me go back to the metrics because in our briefing here, we did -- certainly one metric is apprehensions of drugs which is probably one of the most successful areas, you know, almost 40,000 apprehensions the last year nationwide. i think it was last year. yeah. fiscal year 2015. are there similar -- first of all, do we have instances in tsa where we detected bombs? have we thwarted any attacks or just been very fortunate that we haven't had those? >> yes. as far as we know, we haven't

had a terrorist come through a checkpoint with an explosive to be detected. so to your point, it's hard to measure the deterrence factor of having, you know, a dog at a che checkpoint or anywhere else, so that's difficult for us. >> dr. otto, can you talk about the specialized nature of the different smells? i mean, the digfferent odors, ad what that means from the standpoint of training. >> so there's a number of different odors, but the concept is all kind of the same on how we're going to train them. in our program, we train our dogs with foundation work where they learn how to search. they don't necessarily learn a specific odor. and then depending on their physical characteristics and their behavioral characteristics, we may put them into different careers. so dogs that are searching for humans in disaster settings are searching for a really large amount of odor associated with that person. and those are dogs that are

going to be wide ranging and really looking for odor. we also have a medical detection program where we've trained dogs, the odor associated with ovarian cancer in blood samples. that is a drop of blood, a very minute odor. the dogs that work in that field are very meticulous and very thorough and work in a controlled environment. and so those are kind of the two ends of the spectrum. and then identifying the environments that you would want, the passenger screening environment is going to be probably more similar to our search and rescue environment, whereas maybe the more traditional screening of, you know, suitcases we might get a little bit closer to what we're dealing with the ovarian cancer detection, but usually the amount of odor is still going to be much, much graeater than wha we would see in something like the medical detection. is that what you were asking? >> yes. let's talk about, we talked a little bit about breeding capacity. to me, that just seems like

something we could overcome pretty quickly. there seems to be enough demand for these things and we should know how to breed, so it's a matter of just getting the right ones. let's talk about training capacity. obviously you have a certain approach in training which differs from other centers. do we have a capacity shortage from the standpoint of training, and then ongoing training, too? i'd like you to speak to -- you talked about a team. how important is it the dogs are trained and the handlers conduct that training on an ongoing basis, correct? >> i can talk about the ongoing training based on what swig dog has recommended as national guidelines and the committee on dogs and sensors recommends for ongoing training of 16 hours a month of ongoing training for the canine handler teams. most of what we're doing, we're not really working with those graduate dogs so i think i probably would defer to cbp or tsa to address some of those

issues. >> okay. please. >> so, i'm sorry, can you please repeat the question ? >> really just talking about the ongoing training for the dogs, how the handlers, the responsibility. something i heard from the university of pennsylvania is this isn't something you train a dog for a couple weeks or a couple months and then they're trained. they just -- you got to continually update that on a continuous basis. kind of speak to that. >> absolutely. we all know ground zero is at the training centers. our canines come in, a 14-week course, 12-week, 10-week course, 7 or 5. depending on the variances of where we're going to train our handlers. we talk about the team. the canine, itself, it's very important when we start the canine training with the canine that we determine what capacity that dog is going to be working in in the field. and that's based on our initial prior selection test. >> are those dogs pretrained already and you specifically train them for something or doing the entire training yourself? >> we do the entire training

ourselves. what we want to do is identify the canine based on its innate drives and capabilities because all of our operational environments are very different. so depending on the operational environments are very different. we want to be able to pair that dog in a training center to the operational request. so, for example, if you have a small border in arizona or a large border environment in california, we want to pair the dog to have a successful working life and that comes with the training that we develop at the training centers, the pairing with that handler coming from that environment and essentially setting that dog up for success in the field. that is where it starts at the training center. of course, you have the continued training that goes on with our instructors in the field so it's more of a lateral handoff which progresses the canine throughout its career. >> mrs. hudson, do you have anything to add to that? >> our explosive detection

canines are trained in a basic 15-week course. the passenger screening canines have an additional ten weeks because it's a different search capability, as you saw. it's not a static bag. it's somebody who is moving. so it's a person. they have to see that person as a search possibility and then after we imprint our dogs on the odor, we pair the dog with the handler to figure out how to several peop search people. we're trying to be more efficient and look at the science and training on families with odors because it does take a long time to train these dogs because it's such a high-stakes business. how do we look at imprinting odor by odor, looking at families of odors. we're trying to compress the timeline to be able to deploy dogs faster. it's a hard job. we have to train to that job. >> dr. grover, you talked about team failures. can you describe what you're

talking about there? describe what you're talking about. >> well, it would just be an -- a circumstance when a canine team missed an explosive aid during either the annual certification or as part of tsa's cycle assessments where they are really paying great attention to all of the psc teams and making sure they are enhancing their performance. so the last data that was reviewed on this did show significant variation between the teams at the top-performing airports and lower performing airports and that could be because some teams had a bad day or two at the time of the testing or it could be a longer-term issue. the details of the failure rates are at isi so we can share them with your staff but not in a public environment. tsa has the data so they can follow up on that. >> do you have any opinions of why you had team failures?

would it be the handlers not doing the ongoing training, kind of keeping the dog current and themselves current? can you speak to that? >> i think there's a number of different things that can influence it. what we've looked at is when are our dogs at their peak, when are they at their best? we can help the dogs to do their jobs without as much handler influence. the more independent that the dogs are, the less chance that maybe the handler having a bad day, the dog having a bad day, either one of them, you know, that we can really help that move forward. i do think that there are a come combination of environmental factors. so, you know, paying attention to that, we've also looked at some of the medical aspects that may affect a dog's ability to

detect anned odor and happily w don't have a lot of the problems in the medications that we've been testing but some medications can actually decrease the odor detection ability of a dog. >> you're saying medications that the dogs might -- >> dogs' medications. >> and there are different breeds that are better at different things? >> i think there are different penalties within breeds that are better at different things. if we go to our cancer detection area, we have a german shep hhe, a labrador and springer spaniel. it's so much more the personality within the breed. i think when we're really selecting the dogs that have the genetic capacity for odor detection, it's then how does that dog's personality interact with the genetics. >> you were talking about the added value for the passenger

screening versus the conventional screening. bottom line, there's going to have to be some specialized training because you're dealing with passengers as opposed to going down the bowels of the airport. >> possibly, yes. we will always make sure that tsa has good evidence to support that all of these additional weeks are necessary to get the outcomes -- no need to spend the taxpayer dollars unless it's not necessary. and that data is not all in place yet. >> being an accountant, i like metrics. let me close out, i do want someone within your organization providing a written response to questions for the record about what's the desired level of teams here? my guess is you would all agree that they can be very effective, correct?

and we really do need to take a hard look at -- i don't want to be penny-wise and pawn foolish here, just one instance of somebody getting through. it can be pretty harmful to our economy. what i see the thousand canine units within tsa, it costs money but it's within the hundreds and millions of dollars as opposed to a potential harm here. i want to get a sense of how effective this is and what is the total cost and what is the desired level because i'd like to be supportive of this. so -- let me just kind of close out the hearing going down the line, if you've got a final comment before the end of the hearing. let's start with you, mrs. hutchinson. >> thank you for your strong support of our program. they are very effective, as you can see. we saw it here this morning. i know we need more across the system. we'll get you that answer. we're looking at that as an organization. again, we didn't talk about --

which i this i is a huge benefit for canines, is the ability to involve them with the threat. we can also deploy them differently so as the threat changes to insider threat, we can move them to the backside of the airport very quickly. it's a very portable asset for us as well and i think that's significant for our mission. thank you. >> thank you as well. i want to point out one significant point. as we continue to evolve our canine training program, one of the emphasis is the type of dogs that we're selecting and the process that we've been able to refine. i'll give you the statistical numbers. $428 was presented to us for possible selection entering our service. through our very rigorous performance and medical selection, we've only selected 278 of those. that's a 64% selection. so the dogs -- there are an abundance of canines out there but we're looking for a particular type of canine for

our mission. now, of those 2270 currently, w have only 11 dogs that weren't able to meet our -- our failures. the canine program on return investment of the taxpayer dollars, we're at a 95% rate to enforce and secure our borders. >> thank you, mr. montes. >> tsa has an effective program here and they have made great strides in using in the metrics that we need to oversee their program. >> doctor? >> i think we all agree that the dogs give us a huge advantage and continuing in a collaborative research environment so we can answer

some of these questions and provide those metrics ongoing and i agree that a dog is so flexible that even if a machine can detect some odor, when we look at the environment that they are working in, the ability for the dogs to problem solve puts them leaps and bounds ahead of any kind of machine type of problem. >> i want to thank you for your time and testimony and thank the handlers and the dogs. senator carper named them. he didn't mention jerry. jerry for being just cute and soft. again, thank you all. i really do appreciate it. with that, the hearing record will remain open for 15 days until march 18th at 5:00 p.m. for the submission of statements and questions for the record. this hearing is adjourned.

coming up tomorrow morning, director of technology e eli dourado discusses fbi director james comey and legal counsel for apple on issues of privacy, national security and encryption. and then author and presidential historian, richard norton smith talks about the historical comparisons to what is happening in the 2016 presidential race. watch "washington journal" at 7:00 a.m. eastern tomorrow morning. join the discussion.

the american conservative union hosts its annual conservative political action conference. our three-day c-pac coverage begins on friday at 4:10 p.m. also, dr. ben carson and then on saturday morning at 10:00, our coverage continues with donald trump and live at 11:30 a.m. eastern with florida governor marco rubio. we'll bring you the results of the cpac straw poll. for our complete schedule, go to c-span.org. book tv has 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors every weekend. here's some of the programs to watch for this weekend. on saturday night at 10:00 eastern. >> the first sentence of the book is the history of american conservativism is a story of disappointmentnd