The Internet Has Fallen In Love With The Tiniest Police Pup Ever

He was caught doing his rounds at an airport.

Liezel

• Published in Animals
• April 5, 2022

Sometimes, a trip to the airport can be one of the most stressful experiences there is. First, you have to deal with the stress and anxiety of not being late and not getting caught in traffic.

Then, you have to deal with the stress of trying to remember if you packed your passport, did you pack enough underwear and socks, and if you somehow misplaced a bomb in your luggage. You know that the security is tight and you'll be scrutinized by every security passage in the place, but then you remember that you're being absurd and that you're not the next Unibomber.

In addition to that, one other thing that can relieve that airport stress is the dogs. Unfortunately, a lot of commonly seen drug detection dogs are still quite big and scary-looking.

Couple those dogs with their stern-looking handlers and well, they might not be so stress-relieving. This adorable tiny police pup though is the complete opposite.

This good doggo that was caught strutting around the airport doing a checking good job will definitely encourage you to even give the dog a sniff of your own luggage. Who can resist this tiny pup?

Read on for the full story.

Tiny chihuahua doing a freaking good job at the airport

While passing through an airport in Colombia, passenger Agata Fornosa spotted this teeny tiny contraband-sniffing Chihuahua wearing the cutest little yellow police vest with a couple of police officers doing their rounds.

In the video, the puppy is seen strutting around the airport, sniffing the bags, and also a few pillars here and there. And well, he has definitely won the hearts of the Internet.

According to an interview with The Dodo, Agata asked some girls at the duty-free shop what the pup's name was and they told her it was Chiqui. She found the puppy and his work beautiful so she decided to film a video and post it on TikTok.

The video has now gone viral and has over 9 million views and over 650k likes. Agata herself said that the pup made everyone smile while he was so focused on his work.

How can you not smile at this little pup so dedicated to his work?

Our four-legged friends have been helping us protect others and prevent crime for more than a hundred years already though. Since the 1880s, they've already been helping in various kinds of police work.

This is one of the earliest photos of our K9 friends helping the police force

According to Custom Canine Unlimited, the first appearance of police dogs can be traced way back to the late 1880s in England. There, the Bloodhound's amazing sense of smell was used to track Jack the Ripper.

Then, in the 1900s, the Belgian police force started the formal training for law enforcement dogs. Ever since, this training process has been used to train canines all over the world.

Both the pup and their handler will go through extensive training to work effectively as a team

Canine sniffer dogs and their handlers all go through months of extensive training for them to be certified. The most common breeds of dogs for this job include German Shepherd dogs, Bloodhounds, Belgian Malinois, Dutch Shepherds, and Labrador Retrievers.

According to the ICTS, this extensive training doesn't end after they're certified. They will also go through retraining and testing throughout their entire careers to ensure that their skills are always reliable and up to standard.

Dogs and handlers often stay together for long periods of time or until the ends of their career and are retrained and re-tested together.

The pups are trained with treats and games

Training pups all start with play. And of all activities, the common ground is treats.

The main objective of the training is to have the pups associate the finding of an illegal substance with a reward.

There has been a lot of controversy about the effectiveness of these pups though

Given that there has been a very small amount of research on their effectiveness, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the effectiveness of using drug detection dogs.

One of the concerns raised by M. Dunn and L. Degenhardt is that drug users don't see detection dogs as an obstacle or threat to their drug use. They either take precautions or simply consume their drugs when coming in contact with the law.

Some experts also say that drug detection dogs prevent drug users from using in public locations which is closer to medical assistance. Private consumption can be riskier and can lead to a potential overdose.

In a study by Peta Malins in 2019, it was found that being police dog searched was a highly distressing experience for some that made people feel dehumanized and disempowered. She believes that “operations are not working and are instead producing a range of harms including increased risks of overdose, stigma and trauma, they should be immediately discontinued.”

In addition to those studies, evidence also suggests that detection dogs primarily detect consumers rather than suppliers. Dave Wright, a former police NSW Police dog trainer told Fact Check that these dogs would not be able to tell the scent between a scent from someone in possession of drugs and residual scent.

At this moment, it's difficult to say what course of action is best. At the end of the day, we have to appreciate the work that our K9 friends do.

More on Chiqui though, the dog definitely made the days of a lot of people. Many are saying that the only people not smiling are the ones with trouble on their hands.

Here are some of the comments.

No matter whether there are studies that say that there is no need for detection dogs, we think we can safely say that they have helped out our police forces a lot. We can also agree that they're some of the smartest creatures on the planet.

So, no matter their size, they definitely deserve our admiration and appreciation.

Liezel