In the wake of recent tragedies such as the Boston Marathon bombing and the London bombing at the Ariana Grande concert in the Manchester Arena, people are on high alert when attending large events. Thankfully, so are a team of dogs.

Researchers at Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine developed Vapor Wake® dog training, a patent-pending technology for “a highly advantageous method and system for detecting explosive and other illicit substances.”

This technology was developed in response to the attempted 2001 shoe-bombing by Richard Reid. The trained dogs can detect the faintest scent of a body-worn bomb from as far away as the length of a football field. The technology employs Gary Settle’s research on human thermal plumes. – His research indicates that heat naturally emanates from the human body, creating a wave-like motion with the thermal plume moving up as the person stands still and the plume moving backwards as the person moves forward.

Although drug and bomb sniffing dogs have been credited for detecting explosives and thousands of pounds of drugs, their methods can be somewhat flawed as they are trained to detect items based on narrow search parameters. If the dog’s handler does not instruct the dog to sniff every single person or every single item it passes, it will not typically alert to an explosive or drugs.

The Vapor Wake® system, however, is unlike other detection methods because, as the patent application describes, “when the canine detects a trained scent, the canine leads the handler to or follows behind the carrier of the item with the scent.”

These dogs are unique compared to other K-9s because they are born and raised at Auburn University. In their first year of life, they receive socialization training and Vapor Wake® training until they are about 18 months old. They are then paired with a handler for a seven-week joint behavior training course. Once that training is complete, the dogs are ready to put their skills to the test.

Their extensive training enables these dogs to work calmly and efficiently in large crowds while screening dozens of people at one time.  Large metropolitan areas such as Chicago and New York City have employed the Vapor Wake® dogs as well as Amtrak, Disney World, Disney Land, concert arenas, and sport stadiums. Apple has even employed the dogs to work at their major launch events. Vapor Wake purposely use Labrador retrievers due to their approachability and their ability to work and maintain focus for long periods of time.

Paul Hammond, President of VWK9, the commercial side of Vapor Wake®, said “the reality is that the terrorist is always evolving and the new threat is the smaller device being body-worn and hidden and transited into an event. These bombs are only emitting a small amount of explosive particles. So traditional bomb dogs really struggle to protect against a bomber in transit. People will try to beat a metal detector or sneak things into luggage at airports, but when it comes to a dog they don’t try. They do not want to take on a canine’s sense of smell.”

To keep the dogs’ sense of smell refined, the University trains them rigorously, and reviews and recertifies them on a yearly basis. When the dogs are ready to retire, the University enters them into an adoption program where they are carefully screened and matched with a permanent home.