The Military Utility of the “Porn-Sniffing Dog”

The Military Utility of the “Porn-Sniffing Dog”
by Scott Faith

This article first appeared in The Havok Journal 22 September 2016.

I’ll admit it, I was skeptical when I first read a story about a “porn-sniffing dog.”  “How does that work exactly,” I wondered.  It was disconcerting to think about what someone would have to do to his porn to make it where a dog can sniff it out.  But even without it being disgustingly defiled, how does the dog know something’s porn and not, say, Maxim?  Do videos with more exposed skin have a different scent or something?  It’s it a doggie judgment call on what is “porn” vs. what is “art?”

Well, I did some research and apparently it is a real thing, after all.  Kind of.

Everyone knows that dogs have extremely sensitive sniffers.  We regularly used them in Iraq and Afghanistan to find bombs, bad guys… you name it.  But we never had a porn-sniffing dog, and for that I’m sure many troops are breathing a sigh of relief.

As it turns out, the term “porn-sniffing dog” is a bit misleading.   Dogs can’t smell “porn,” per se, but they can be trained to sniff out hidden digital media, such as thumb drives, external hard drives, and micro SD cards that many people, especially people into child porn, apparently like to use.  These people are understandably skittish about being found out, so they sometimes go to great lengths to hid their digital stashes.  That’s when the dogs come in.

Not only are these dogs real, but apparently just such a canine was used to nail Jarred, the fat-then-skinny-then-pervy former spokesman for fast food chain Subway.  While I’m glad that’s one less pedophile on the streets, I was thinking about how such dogs would have been EXTREMELY useful to us downrange in the War on Terror.  I’m not talking about for finding “porn” in and of itself; we all knew that every jihadist, including Bin Laden (especially Bin Laden) was going to have porn on him when we rolled them up.  What would have been useful is for those dogs to be on site when we did sensitive site exploitation, or SSE, as part of the F3EAD process.  Even Bin Laden was known to employ couriers who used thumb drives to transmit orders to his operational commanders, and I wonder how much legitimately useful digital media went undiscovered during our raids.

Yep, a dog like that would have been a great potential force multiplier for us, even if it was a “blue on blue” threat to troops and their porn stashes while on the FOB.

Scott Faith is a veteran of a half-dozen combat deployments and has served in several different Special Operations units over the course of his Army career. Scott’s writing focuses largely on veterans’ issues, but he is also a big proponent of Constitutional rights and has a deep interest in politics. He often allows other veterans who request anonymity to publish their work under his byline.  Scott welcomes story ideas and feedback on his articles, and can be reached at havokjournal@havokmedia.com.