Dogs Can Sniff Out Bedbugs
Posted March 14 2010
It has been widely reported that Dogs May Be Able To Sniff Out Cancer. Now the New York Times has a wonderful article on how dogs are using their amazing sense of smell to sniff out and locate bedbug infestations. The article is called A New Breed of Guard Dog Attacks Bedbugs and is authored by Penelope Green.
Above is a photo of Cruiser, the chief Bedbug Inspector for New York based Bed Bug Inspectors. This natural process is actually very safe for the dogs and locating the bugs involves no chemicals or harmful agents. The dogs come in, sniff around, and then point out where the bugs are. Don’t worry – dogs never contract bedbugs, they simply can smell the bugs and they point out the locations for inspectors. Bedbugs subsist on human blood (not canine) and dogs seem to enjoy the detection work.
In 2008 the University of Florida came out with a bedbug dog study showing that trained Bed Bug Dog Teams could detect live bedbugs and viable bedbug eggs with up to 95% accuracy. Amazing!
Photo by Chad Batka for The New York Times
Comments
1 commentAneil
March 14 2010 at 03:09PMThanks for sharing Chip. This is really cool. I remember seeing a really small dog (didn’t know the breed) catch somebody who had citrus in their bags after an international flight. It was really funny, the little guy just jumped right up on the persons bag. I guess there’s no end to the surprises dogs can offer us.