“How about in there, Otis?” she asked as she led the dog to a basket full of stuffed animals.
Otis probed the basket with his nose and immediately sat at attention — there was something in there. Digging her hands in the plush toys, Barbaria pulled out a capsule of methamphetamine.
 Maria Barbaria of Montara stands with her drug sniffing dog Otis in her home on Friday during a training session where identification of scents such as cocaine and ectasy is rewarded with treats and pats on the head. Barbaria is creating a business of renting her dog by the hour to local parents and businesses who are interested in searching their residence for hidden narcotics. |
Scouring the rest of the room, Otis continued to sniff out more drugs — cocaine hidden in the hall closet, ecstasy in the couch cushions, and marijuana buried in a bag of coffee grounds.
It was a grand slam for the 3-year-old border collie. For his training exercise he had found all the hidden “drugs” — actually capsules scented to smell like the real substances. Otis had been through this training countless times before over the last year, preparing for the real deal, when his snooping talents will go into action.
Barbaria plans to start a business, “Sniffers,” to hire out her Otis’ drug-sniffing talents to Coastside parents who want to make sure their sons and daughters remain drug-free.
Hiring out dogs to sniff out drug use is not a new business model. For years, susceptible businesses, such as trucking companies, have hired trained dogs to investigate drug use among their employees. However, the business idea has expanded into individual homes in the last few months.
“Every parent wonders if their kids are bringing drugs into the house,” Barbaria said,
“Most parents that’d be hiring us, they already suspect, but they want to know for sure.”
A Sheriff’s deputy on medical leave, Barbaria says that the prevalence of narcotics has led many parents to seek out new measures to ensure their children’s safety. Parents, she says, often pick up on signs that their kids are getting involved with drugs, but they usually have no proof beyond their suspicions.
Taking a cue from similar ventures in Ohio and New Jersey, Barbaria realized there was business potential in private drug searches of teenagers’ rooms.
“This idea just came out of my little brain,” she said. “I’ve spoken with plenty of parents who said they’d pay plenty of money for this.”
Barbaria says she plans to charge about $100 to $150 an hour for a drug search. Unlike the police or Sheriff’s departments, Barbaria points out that Sniffers is confidential and won’t arrest or prosecute a teenager for having drugs. She says her purpose is to find out whether a teen has a drug problem and direct that adolescent to professional help. And any drugs she finds, she plans to simply dispose of.
“It’s an embarrassing issue — no one wants to admit their kids are doing drugs,” she said, explaining that as a mother she has had her own share of parental worry.
Two years ago, she suspected her son was dabbling in drugs, but she was conflicted. Even though she worked as a deputy, Barbaria says she couldn’t face calling the Sheriff’s Office to raid her 17-year-old’s room. But she had to know for certain.
“I tore my son’s room apart myself,” she said. “I didn’t know what I’d find at first.”
During the search, she discovered a few marijuana seeds, which she threw away. With her son living with her ex-husband, Barbaria says she had little means to punish him or get him help. But she admits that if her son knew she was snooping through his room, it may have damaged their relationship.
“At the time, if he found out, he’d probably be pissed off at me,” Barbaria said. “But he gets it now and there’s no problem with it … we have a great relationship.”
Barbaria disputes the notion that parents are intruding on their children’s privacy by hiring Sniffers to rummage through their rooms.
“Part of the problem is kids think they have more rights than they actually do,” she said. “Until you’re 18, you’re living under your parents’ roof.”
Barbaria says she is waiting for the Sheriff’s Office to finalize her retirement before she begins taking jobs for Sniffers — which she thinks should be within a month or two.
However, getting parents to schedule a drug search on their children is harder than it seems, says Debra Stone, the founder of Sniff Dogs. Operating since July in New Jersey and Ohio, Sniff Dogs may be the first canine drug-search business to target residences.
Stone says, despite overwhelming publicity from media sources, her business has been mediocre, at best.
“We get 50,000 hits a month on our Web site,” Stone said. “But the parents are not calling … the volume is increasing, but we’re doing only about five (searches) a week. We were expecting to be doing 40 a week.”
Nonetheless, Stone says her business has generated interest from another sector — entrepreneurs excited that McGruffs-for-hire could be a hot business. She estimates she’s fielded more than 300 calls from others interested in starting their own dog-sniffing businesses across the country.
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