Sample TSA Procurement Test
This is an example of the TSA procurement assessment process and average dogs accepted for training. This is not to be interpreted as “the gold standard,” we are simply trying to give people an idea of what the process looks like. TSA has since moved to new testing facilities which are larger and more challenging.
Statements of Work
Federal agencies use “Statements of Work” to describe the specifics of their requirements when purchasing things on contracts. Below are two examples, one from the Transportation Security Administration and one from the Department of Defense. These contracts are subject to change and open to interpretation. We provide them here just as an example to help people understand what agencies are looking for in potential detection dogs. However, remember that federal purchasing regulations still require federal agencies to purchase from approved vendors, so unless your business has gone through the process to become an approved vendor, you will not be able to sell directly to the federal government. Click here for more information on our blog.
TSA Canine SOW and Attachments (pdf)
Department of Defense Statement of Work (pdf)
Updating Standards and Terminology
SWGDOG- Scientific Working Group on Dog and Orthogonal detector Guidelines
Consensus standards created in a public/private partnership
https://swgdog.fiu.edu/approved-guidelines/
NIST- National Institute of Standards and Technology
https://youtu.be/2j9BGVKbzS4
https://www.nist.gov/topics/forensic-science/dogs-and-sensors-subcommittee
Purchasing Contracts
The slides below draw from actual statements of work for dog purchasing and from the original 1907 contract between the Wright brothers and the Department of the Army.
These picture graphs make the words used most frequently the biggest in the image. We would hope that the words that really stand out would be applicable to the efficient assessment of potential detection dogs. Ironically, it is often not the case.
