Day 1: HME Awareness & Imprinting – Students will spend the morning in a classroom setting learning the basic principles of explosive materials. Following the classroom, students will move into the laboratory and participate in the synthetization of several homemade explosives including TATP, HMTD, Urea Nitrate and more. Various tests will be conducted to demonstrate the level of sensitivity, or lack therefore, for the HME compounds, as well as methods for desensitization. Students will witness first-hand the destructive power of HME. Additionally, students will create several FOx mixtures. The remainder of the afternoon will be spent imprinting and participating in practical search scenarios utilizing the very material that students created in the lab earlier in the day.

Day 2: Large Quantity Hides – Day 2 provides teams with scenarios involving quantities of explosives that are realistic and often used in real-world threats, but rarely trained upon. Unusual K9 behavior involving mass quantities of explosive material is often misunderstood and/or misinterpreted by the handler, due to unfamiliarity. Students will imprint their dog on various types and quantities of explosive materials that range from 5 to 100 pounds.

Day 3: Live Post-Blast Exposure and Secondary Device Searches – The final day of this combo course will expose K9 teams to a live detonations and post blast explosive environment. Teams will experience what it’s like to handle their dog in an area that is littered with an overwhelming amount of explosive residue and residual odor from an explosion. Teams will participate in practical scenarios and work their dog through the contaminated environment while searching for secondary and tertiary threats that may be presented by additional explosive devices. The clearing of additional explosive threats allows for rescue/recovery operations, and evidence collection. YOU DO NOT WANT THE FIRST TIME YOU HAVE TO WORK THROUGH A POST BLAST SCENE BE REAL-WORLD.