Revenue dog Bailey uncovers more than €2m in drugs in two years
“Fetch on, buddy.”
Those three words are enough to turn Bailey, a three-year-old drug dog in the employ of the Revenue Commissioners, from happy-go-lucky pooch into a drug-finding machine.
He has already helped uncover more than €2m in drugs in just two years.
When Bailey is in work-mode, he brooks no distractions, as a quick demonstration by his handler Alan Foley shows.
He moves fast, checking out everything in the immediate environs, a piece of grassland at the An Post mailing centre in west Dublin. Like so much else, Covid-19 has put paid to any thoughts of an on-the-job display, something Revenue would have been otherwise happy to accommodate.
Not that the virus has slowed things down for customs officials - if anything they’re busier given the sheer volume of mail the virus has given rise to.
Mr Foley has brought a sample bag of cannabis herb for the dog to search for.
Bailey finds it hidden in a hedge inside about 60 seconds. As we’ve been told to watch for, his demeanour changes immediately. He goes stiff and remains with his nose hovering directly above the bag. Then Mr Foley slips the athletic animal a dog-toy and he immediately returns to being like any other carefree dog in the park.
This systematic behaviour is all the product of about three month’s training in the case of each animal. Revenue currently has 19 dogs and handlers, though it is in the process of recruiting several more.
If at an airport or other entry point and Bailey senses something he doesn’t like, he’s trained to sit down directly beside the problem passenger, which must be a disconcerting feeling.
There is a lot about Bailey that you might find surprising. He’s a rescue dog for one. His pedigree is unknown. And succession is not an option with drug dogs - Bailey was trained that way but any progeny he may have (male drug dogs are typically not neutered in order to keep their testosterone levels, their eagerness for the job, intact) will not necessarily go that way.
“We tend to focus on springer spaniels or labradors,” Mr Foley explained.
“They’re natural game dogs who are inclined to search for things anyway. We generally are only screening freight and passengers, so we wouldn’t be using dogs that are intimidating. We don’t want to frighten anyone.”
Mr Foley himself, an affable 37-year-old from Dublin, has been working as Bailey’s handler for just two years. He joined Revenue as a customs official in 2017, and then went for the handler role as soon as it was advertised internally.
That led to a short training course in Wales and an examination before he became fully qualified.
“I’ve always been a dog person. I have two others. I’d seen demonstrations of customs handlers in the past and had asked around as to how you might go in that direction so when joining Revenue it was definitely where I wanted to go,” he said.
“It’s a very rewarding job, very personally rewarding. Every day there’ll be something different.
Bailey lives with Mr Foley, though his accommodation standards are a little different to that of his housemates - a fortified kennel with security features.
“He’s a national asset,” Mr Foley said, simply.
While the two are clearly the best of friends, and should Bailey retire at the normal age (generally around eight years depending on the health of the animal) it would be into Mr Foley’s care, though that depends on the handler themselves.
“Handlers are clerical officer level. If we move to another job the dog stays behind. He still has a job to do and he’s trained to respond to the command, not the person,” he said.
This point your writer can verify. When I delivered the appropriate command, in the right tone of voice, Bailey went where I told him, and inspected where I pointed.
“As soon as the harness goes on he immediately becomes a working dog, and stays that way until he’s rewarded when he finds something,” Mr Foley said.
Which Bailey does, every day. The dog detector unit is a mobile one - on any given day Mr Foley and Bailey could be at Cork Airport, or Rosslare, or at headquarters at the mail centre. The dog is also, in case you’re wondering, pretty much infallible. He doesn’t make mistakes.
“You don’t get false positives really. You may find that Bailey will turn up a container or package that has already been through customs elsewhere, and the contents seized, so he’ll pick up on the residue,” he said.
Bailey works generally in 20-minute spurts across a normal working day, although he can go for an hour at a time if necessary.
He’s an athletic, energetic animal and has to be - screening dogs do a lot of running and jumping onto crates and packages. It’s one of the reasons they tend to retire relatively early - the work takes its toll on the animal’s joints and bones.
In his two-year career to date Bailey has thus far turned up more than €2m worth of the cannabis, heroin, and methamphetamine he has been trained to find.
“Our role stops with the find. We confirm what it is before we reward him so he’s not rewarded for finding the wrong thing. But then customs takes over and we move onto the next search,” said Mr Foley.
“He could just keep searching all day long. It’s all just a game for him.”