Part of the Central Industrial Security Force’s (CISF) dog squad, 10-year-old Snoopy would sniff unattended bags left behind at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi to deem them fit for physical inspection. The cocker spaniel has now retired after serving for 10-long years and landing former India cricket captain MS Dhoni as one of his fans.

Snoopy was often the fastest to detect explosives and accompanied the bomb detection and disposal squad with her fellow dogs Noddy and Pintoo.

MS Dhoni would often visit Snoopy during his travels. “He is a dog lover and while he has strong affection towards every dog, he would particularly come to meet and play with Snoopy each time he was stopping at the airport. She is a bubbly dog and gets along well with almost everyone,” a CISF official told the Times of India.

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CISF is now planning to put dogs for adoption after retirement. This will be done following a bidding process. However, in many cases, the dogs are given to their handlers, instead of the civilians who placed bids.

“The first priority is always the handler, as the dog develops a close bond with them and has been trained by them. As per Bureau of Civil Aviation Security(BCAS) guidelines, all sniffer dogs are retired after 10 years of service and for these three, the tenure ended in June,” the CISF official told TOI.

Snoopy, Pintoo, and Noddy will be replaced by 5 dogs under 1 year of age today. The dogs, including one cocker spaniel and four labradors, will be inducted into CISF’s airport team after having gone through a six-month-long training from the Canine Training Centre in Ranchi.

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The dogs are inducted into the force when they are barely a year old. They are taken in when they are four to six months old and then provided training for six months in Ranchi on detecting explosives and sniffing them out quickly.

Once trained, the dogs are sent to different dog squads across the country. Snoopy came to us when she was barely a year old and has been a faithful servant for over 10 years now. Noddy and Pintoo are equally good at detecting any sign of an explosive device,” said a CISF official to TOI at the IGI airport.

Sniffer dogs undergo a strict regime where they are groomed and trained for 40 minutes daily to detect explosives.