Hey poochie.

Drug sniffing dogs are common at airports and border checks and they’re about to become a familiar sight at some schools in Western Washington, too.

Local law enforcement and Peninsula School District leaders worked together to add this new wrinkle to the learning experience. Starting this spring, the cop canines and their handlers will regularly patrol the parking lots and halls of all three of the district’s high schools, sniffing out pot, heroin and cocaine. But apparently, the new policy won’t have much bite.

The dogs will keep to the byways and not actually go into classes. When a dog pegs drugs on a student or in a locker, the police officer at the leash will not arrest or search the student. He’ll just tell the principal on him or her.

The plan is meant to be a deterrence, rather than an enforcement effort. But for kids who already view their schools as a police state and their authority figures as intrusive, controlling nannies with weapons and rules, this will likely fan the teen angst flames to levels never seen.

The Peninsula School District encompasses Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula, near Olympia, Wash. The law enforcement agencies involved include Gig Harbor police and the Pierce County Sheriff’s department.