In this episode, we visit the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Canine Training
Site, in Front Royal, Virginia.
These working dogs are trained to search and find illegal drugs.
This is Megan. She makes sure these dogs are healthy and ready to work.
We get to work with dogs all day long.
This is Candy, so we’re just gonna do a physical on Candy.
Candy is here so that we can get her back into our working dog program, which means
that she’ll be a detector dog looking for any type of contraband, like narcotics.
So, what makes that a little bit different from a pet dog is that, is that she has a
little bit more, usually energy, excitement to work, excitement for toys.
We check to make sure her gum color looks ok and we look at all of her teeth.
The teeth can help make sure that they’re not developing tartar or gingivitis.
In working dogs, we really have to make, in all dogs, especially working dogs, you
wanna make sure that they don’t have any dental disease.
That can really inhibit them wanting to play with the toys, have bad breath, not
eat well and be in pain.
They can’t speak to you and tell you where things hurt and what they’re feeling
that day.
Sometimes, a lot, they don’t do anything, which can make it challenging to decide that
they’re in pain, but sometimes it’s as simple as their work ethic is.
They don’t want to work as hard that day, which means that they may not want to play
with the toy as excitedly as they normally do.
They may not want to jump to, up and down off of things or jump high, or search high and low.
To become a veterinarian, it takes a lot of
hard work and school.
You have to really apply yourself to all of your different courses, not just sciences
or animal related courses.
But to develop the idea that they want to be a veterinarian, as much exposure
as they can get to the veterinary field and that can come through volunteer work in veterinary
clinics or even in rescues and shelters.