British sniffer dogs are finding sausages but not drugs, because sausages
LONDON -- Sniffer dogs at Manchester Airport are being lambasted for finding cheese and sausages brought back by British holidaymakers, but failing to find any Class A drugs.
The report, by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, assessed border checks at the airport, which has six detector dogs and new kennels costing £1.25 million ($1.76 million).
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It found that although heroin and cocaine were assessed as "very high priority" for the search team, the dogs made no Class A detections between November 2014 and June 2015.
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One dog, who was trained to detect smuggled animal products, found many items accurately, but most were "small amounts of cheese or sausages, wrongly brought back by returning British holidaymakers and posing minimal risk to UK public health".
Inspectors aded that it would be of "more strategic value" to target flights where the dog might find "bushmeat" -- non-domesticated mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds -- which could pose a considerable threat to public health.
Twitter users were swift to defend the dogs:
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Even Ricky Gervais weighed in.
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Over the same time period, the airport dogs have helped in the seizure of more than 46,000 cigarettes, 60kg of tobacco, 181kg of illegal meat and £28,000 (£39,656) cash.
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