Hardy Questions His Training After Finding This . . . and Getting A Couple Minutes With the Squeaky Toy As A Reward

This just may be my favorite picture of the year.  U.S. Customs and Border Protection beagle Hardy found a roasted pig ‘s head in checked luggage at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.  You can almost hear the dog’s inner voice saying “I find this and the ole Hardy ‘good boy’ and a squeaky toy?”  This is precisely why they cannot get cats to do this work.

Hardy is a six-year-old rescue beagle who brought his handler to the bag of  a traveler from Ecuador. The pig’s head weighed nearly 2 pounds.

Now compare the look in 2016 of a K9 beagle named Joey, who found  a whole roasted pig in the baggage of a traveler from Peru.  Joey also seems to be rethinking the assumptions of his work and whether he is a chump for failing for the squeaky toy thing . . .

What is amazing is that, when I travel internationally, I stress over whether I have to declare the chocolates in my coat pocket as food.  This is someone who took a pig without presumably declaring it. There is no indication that the traveler was charged.

However, the true injustice remains with Hardy.  They never explained this at the National Detectors Dog Training Center.