Raise your hand if you’ve changed majors before. We’re sure more than one of our readers understand the how strenuous the search for oneself can be, especially if there are specific expectations from others that you have to meet. We believe this to be a humans-only experience, but what about dogs? They too have a variety of career choices available to them, for example, we’ve seen many Chihuahuas trying to live as Pitbulls or many Great Danes trying to pass for a lap dog, or in Lulu’s case, she hoped she could one day be a bomb sniffer.
Our trainers’ top concern is physical & mental well-being of K9s.
They made difficult decision & did what’s best for Lulu: stop her training pic.twitter.com/Ss9y9LpE9q— CIA (@CIA) October 18, 2017
Lulu is an 18-month-old Labrador that showed great promise as an explosive detection dog for the CIA. While growing out of her baby fur, there was nothing else that Lulu enjoyed more than a good game of hide & seek, you hide a bomb, Lulu finds it, the CIA soon took notice of her talent and drafted Lulu as a free-agent for their explosive detections programme.
We’re sad to announce that a few weeks into training, Lulu began to show signs that she wasn’t interested in detecting explosive odors. pic.twitter.com/c6lxHPfC09
— CIA (@CIA) October 18, 2017
Lulu started her training in the Fairfax County Police Department in Virginia, demonstrating virtuosity in her first weeks, however, this amazing display of talent started waning as time passed by and the spark that Lulu’s eyes would get when searching for a bomb would no longer shine.
We’ll miss Lulu, but it was right decision for her & we wish her all the best in her new life!https://t.co/nPZl6YWNKb pic.twitter.com/Mbcr9C7wUY
— CIA (@CIA) October 18, 2017
The Labrador seemed stuck in a downward spiral, the pressure to be one of the best bomb-sniffers in the country made Lulu throw her back, as the weeks passed by, Lulu’s explosive-detection talent was nothing but a memory, she was no longer interested in searching for explosives.
Lulu wasn’t interested in searching for explosives.
Even when motivated w food & play, she was clearly no longer enjoying herself. pic.twitter.com/puvhDk1tRX— CIA (@CIA) October 18, 2017
“[Lulu] was clearly not enjoying herself any longer,” said the Central Intelligence Agency, when they were “sad to announce” that the dog had been dropped from the training programme, which is a nice way of saying that Lulu was fired.
Lulu was adopted by her handler & now enjoys her days playing w his kids & a new friend, & sniffing out rabbits & squirrels in the backyard. pic.twitter.com/WOImM75P1D
— CIA (@CIA) October 18, 2017
“Sometimes, even when a pup tests well and they successfully learn how to detect explosive odors, they make it clear that being an explosive detection K9 is not the life for them,” the agency said on their website.
But Lulu is still young, and she can always choose another career path, right now her handler took custody of Lulu, and has been checking that she transitions well from a CIA dog to a house dog, if Lulu ever wanted to try luck back in some enforcement agency, the choice would be up to her.
Article inspired by Independent // CIA retires sniffer dog because she wants to play instead of search for explosives