Kicker: Dog ears

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro?

Or do your ears hang high? Do they reach up to the sky?

That matters to the Transportation Security Administration, for certain employees.

TSA canine security sniffs out drugs, explosives, and other illegal cargo at airports around the country.  

But the agency says pointy-eared dogs scare children. So more floppy-ears dogs can find employment with TSA going forward.

Around 80% of the 1200 TSA canines are already of the hang-down sort. Breeds like labs, vizslas, and retrievers.

Now, pups with spiky ears won’t be automatically disqualified. Intelligence and competence are top priorities for the job. They’ll just more likely be assigned to bomb-sniffing duty than passenger screening.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

(AP Photo/David Goldman) A TSA explosives detection dog sniffs passengers as they go through a security checkpoint at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta.

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