Detector dogs play a vital role in the seizure of prohibited goods heading for Australia through ports, airports, mail centres and freight facilities.
While their presence can spell disaster for people attempting to import drugs, explosives and other banned or restricted items, working with them can be an absolute pleasure.
"Every time you go to work there is someone very happy to see you," says Marc Dransman, senior instructor in the Australian Border Force Detector Dog Program.
Dransman works at Bulla, north of Melbourne, where labradors are bred and trained for duty across the country. He worked in retail, construction and freight forwarding before becoming a customs officer and then a narcotics dog handler at Tullamarine Airport where he checked international arrivals and freight, sometimes identifying suspicious behaviour and items that led to seizures of drugs and the referral of suspicious passengers and importers to federal police.
Dogs are able to screen large volumes of people and goods quickly and efficiently and they complement technical capabilities such as X-ray and trace particle detection. Labradors are considered most suitable because of their stable temperament, non-threatening appearance and energy.
Dransman says people with experience in immigration and border protection work are often attracted to the dog detector program because they enjoy the independence of the role and have an affinity for animals.
"You have to be in reasonably good physical shape, able to motivate the dog and make decisions on the fly," he says.
At the Bulla facility, which opened in 2011, novice dogs are trained with novice handlers, each learning a consistent sequence for searching freight, mail, luggage, vehicles, vessels, aircraft, premises and people. Dogs are initially trained to detect narcotics, firearms, explosive, currency or tobacco, working with border force officers and probationers recruited from around Australia and then returning to the handler's home base to work as a team.
"We also bring dogs back in to assess them or give them new capabilities. Dogs can find anything with an odour. They can pick up minute smells and distinguish between them," Dransman says.
Part of the handler's role is to continue training the dog and motivating it to work – hiding a "dummy" for it to find – is part of the pleasure of the job: "People bond with the working dog pretty much as they do with a pet but at the end of the day the dogs go back to their kennels and the handlers go home." When an animal reaches the end of its career – often after working up to seven years – it may go and live with its handler or return to the foster family who raised it as a pup.
Not all the Bulla bred dogs work for the border force. Some head for federal or state police work, some to corrections facilities and some to defence force roles.
Dogs also go on to become companions and guides to people with visual impairment and to live as companions to armed forces veterans living with post-traumatic stress.