Kajla, a 5-year-old Vizsla who works as an explosives detection dog screening passengers at a Hawaii airport, has been named TSA’s cutest canine for 2020.
She beat out three other finalists from airports in Phoenix, Oakland and Dallas-Forth Worth in online voting.
The Transportation Security Administration, part of Homeland Security, made the announcement in conjunction with National Dog Day, which is Wednesday.
Last year’s winner was Alfie, a yellow lab who worked at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport.
The dogs might be cute, and they may try their best, but an inspector general says they’re not particularly effective.
In a report this spring, the Homeland Security inspector general said TSA’s dog training is so out of date that the canines may not be able to sniff out the latest types of explosives.
And TSA doesn’t even know how many dog teams it needs nor how best to deploy them, the audit found. Some employees thought the dogs were more about speeding passengers through lines than actually detecting explosives.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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