UK airport spends £1.25 million on sniffer dogs, they end up finding sausages

Here’s a lot of money to spend on some dogs: £1.25 million. That’s how much Manchester airport spent on some dogs, which - if my calculations are right - seems a tad “ridiculous”. But hey, you gotta spend money to stop crime, and these mutts were put in place to detect bad and naughty contraband items like drugs. 

Thing was, over a seven month period, a team of six dogs completely failed to find absolutely any class As. However - phew - they did find small amounts of cheese and some sausages. So that’s £208, 333 per dog, there - £208, 333 to find a bit of cheese and a couple of bangers. Money, I feel, that was very well spent.

A report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, stated:

“The deterrent effect of the detection dogs was difficult to measure, but seizures alone represented a low return on investment, given 1.25 million spent on new kennels and the costs of operating the unit.”

Each dog had their own specialty, like drugs, tobacco, money and thankfully - due to the sausages being found - illegal meat, and a few of them followed through on their promise, with 46 kg of cigarettes and 181 kg of meat being seized over the period. However, the other hounds were slacking, big time, particularly the drugs ones, who found nada, the lazy little bum-sniffers.

As such, the report states that officials are currently looking for a better way to deploy the dogs. The dogs that cost £1.25 million. The dogs that, at a cost of £208, 333 each, found some cheese.

Here are a couple of suggestions about what to do with the dogs, Manchester airport:

1) Plane dogs - put a dog on a plane for the passengers to play with (fetch down the aisle; find the cheese etc), and let me tell you, that long-haul flight is going to go a lot quicker, and possibly smellier

2) Queue dogs - a lot of queuing at the airport, ain’t there? Why not place a few dogs at staggered points along the queue, so that you can pet them while you wait?

3) Expensive Dog Bazaar - you know how sometimes they have like a nice new car out in the terminal and you can have a look at it and get a brochure and stuff? Well, why not have a little pen with all the useless, no-drug-finding dogs in it with a sign saying “WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE DOGS” on it? And then you can have a look at them and get a brochure and stuff

4) Erm, dog pilots LOOK I’VE RUN OUT OF IDEAS BUT YOU GET MY POINT

Anyway, I wish the sacked dogs all the best in their next jobs, whatever they may be (see above).

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(Images: Getty)