Celebrating 280 dog years of excellence

The Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Brendan O’Connor, today visited Customs and
Border Protection in Sydney to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Detector Dog
Program.

The Minister said that for the last 40 years the Detector Dog Program has played an
important role in protecting Australia from prohibited imports such as drugs, firearms
and explosives.

“This is a world class program and the committed and highly skilled dogs and handlers
play a critical role in protecting Australia’s border.

“Detector dogs are trained to find prohibited imports such as narcotics, firearms and
explosives hidden in luggage, mail, cargo, vessels, vehicles, aircraft and on people.

“Last year the Customs and Border Protection detector dog teams attended more than
17,000 tasks and directly contributed to the detection of 380 illicit imports and exports,”
Mr O’Connor said.

The detector dogs are bred in the Customs and Border Protection National Breeding
and Development Centre in Melbourne and trained at the Detector Dog Training Centre,
currently based in Brisbane.

The Program is versatile and effective. The high quality training is evident through
detections of unusual drug concealments, including cocaine being carried internally by
passengers and heroin concealed in shampoo bottles.

Throughout its history the program has provided dogs and training to other Australian
law enforcement agencies and to international customs organisations including the U.S,
China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Guam, Saipan, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Japan, New
Zealand, and Thailand.

“I congratulate the Detector Dog Program on this significant milestone and look forward
to the next 280 dog years”, Mr O’Connor said.

Media Contact: Brian Humphreys 0438 595 567