Lloyd Fox, Baltimore Sun
Dogs Finding Drugs is a non-profit catering to concerned parents, nonprofit uses canines to ferret out marijuana and other contraband. From the family perspective there is a major debate over whether this service is beneficial or if it is harmful to the parents relationship to their children. I suspect that if the issue is severe enough to warrant hiring a drug sniffing dog at $200 there is a bigger problem going on in the home then just some recreational drug use. If the problem is so severe that the choice is bringing in the dog and getting their child the help they obviously desperately need whether that is drug rehab or getting them into a school that can deal with the problem I don't think there is a question about loss of trust. In the end when the child has been helped they will understand why their parents did what they did. Which is why I really don't understand this statement from the National Institute on Drug Abuse because I don't see a family hiring a drug sniffing dog as their first attempt to get to the bottom of the situation. I see it as a last ditch effort to find whatever it is that is negatively effecting their child's life and get them help.
The best way for parents to handle a child's potential drug problem begins with a good old-fashioned conversation rather than a drug-sniffing dog, says Elizabeth Robertson, the National Institute on Drug Abuse's chief of prevention research.
There will be parents who might hire the dogs to spy on their children but they are probably already listening in on telephone calls, searching their sock drawer when putting the laundry away, reading their child's email ect.I can also see where hiring the dogs would be the chosen method of searching out drugs and contraband at Private Schools instead of allowing the police to come in allowing the school to deal with the matter privately. Or even for a business to hire the dog if there was a serious situation going on.
Of course from the dog's point of view having a job will keep the dog happier and allow them to feel like they have a purpose to their day. I do know several dogs who have been trained in detection and they love to do their job. Even those that failed explosive detection (only because they would get too excited when they found the object) loved to search out and find drugs or do scent detection work. Dogs with jobs are happy dogs whether that job is visiting nursing homes, children's hospitals, or helping law enforcement sniff out explosives or even getting the family newspaper every morning.