How ‘SEAL Team’ Explosive Detection Dogs Train and Work Well in the Real World

Dita, a three-year-old Belgian Malinois, plays an explosives detection dog on the CBS special forces drama “SEAL Team,” performing stunts ranging from helicopter rides to ladder climbing. Her handler, Justin Melnick, initially trained her to be part of a search-and-rescue operation while working with a real-life small-town Indiana police force but later transitioned her to narcotics detection. “Everything we do on the show is real, and it’s all training for her,” Melnick said.

What first inspired you to pursue this path of military and law enforcement?

I spent about six years working around the world as a combat photographer, and the pinnacle was in Afghanistan — I spent three months with the troops in Afghanistan, traveling across the country by land [and] air, and I came back and I wanted to join the military. What I saw there made me want to be part of the solution. When I came back, I started a process called 18 X-ray, which is a direct special forces program. And I had to make a big decision. I realized that I didn’t have the certain qualities that were necessary to work in a special operations unit and that I wasn’t cut out for that job. It’s really hard at 29 to figure out what you want to do, what you can’t do. So I really didn’t know what I was going to do [but] ended up randomly connecting and moving to Indiana and working for a small police force there. I spent seven years revamping their program, helping them with active shooter training—using training from larger metropolitan police departments and military units based on counterterrorism measures to counter the situation if there was an active shooter. Our schools were very fortunate and our police chief was at the forefront of installing body cameras and school resource officers, so we had a police officer in the school and we were able to stop a number of incidents before they actually happened because of proactive policing. So my main focus there was the active shooter and basically integrating SWAT tactics into patrol.