International Cooperation

Customs commitment to world's best practice in the breeding, training and deployment of detector dogs has resulted in the program becoming recognised around the world as a leader in producing and maintaining high-quality detector dog teams.

Assistance with training methods has been provided to Indonesia, Malaysia, Guam, Saipan, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, China, Japan, New Zealand, Thailand and the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian De-mining.

In addition, dogs from the Australian breeding program are working as detector dogs, or have been used to establish new breeding centres in other countries, including the U.S. China has also used Australian detector dog breeding and training techniques as a model to help them establish their own program. A contingent of 22 Australian detector dogs and puppies has been donated to China to be trained and used to detect narcotics.

As part of its program of international cooperation, Customs has developed a vision to establish a global gene bank for breeding future detector dogs using the Australian model.