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Philly Police Dog Sniffs Out Prison Cell Phones

by Peter Mychalcewycz on April 17, 2009 at 04:12 PM



Dogs may be known as man's best friend, but one dog in particular is making life difficult for would-be cell phone smugglers incarcerated in Philadelphia prisons.

Bomber, a 60-pound Belgian Malinois, is a specially trained pooch tasked with detecting smuggled cell phones in prisons. Since January, Bomber has sniffed out 10 phones while patrolling Philly's six prisons -- to put his success in perspective, that's more than all of Pennsylvania's two-legged guards found last year in the state's entire prison system.

When it comes to detecting contraband, the disparity between canine and man was summed up by Sgt. William Finn, who told Philly.com, "A dog has more than 220 million olfactory receptors in its nose. Humans have only five million." We don't disagree, but we can't imagine the guards were using their noses to find the phones.


Still, it's nice to see an animal actually making life more difficult for contraband-smuggling inmates. Yes, all you pigeons out there, we've got our eyes on you. [From: Philly.com]

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Tags: animals, cell phone, CellPhone, crime, dogs, k-9, pets, prison, top

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