BLOG: Bed Bug Hunting with Dogs

Most people have heard about the steady advancement of bed bugs in our cities. Maybe you have even been a victim of their bites. But did you know that help is on the way in form of our furry, four-legged friends?

Dogs have been trained to detect everything from explosives and narcotics, live human scent in disasters, even sea turtle eggs or e.coli and certain forms of cancer. Now they are being trained for finding live bed bugs – and they come with a powerful weapon! A dog's mighty sniffer boasts more than 200 million olfactory receptors, while ours has a modest 5 million.

But that's not all: the part of a dog's brain that analyzes scents is roughly 40 times larger than ours. This makes dogs perfect for helping us finding the literal needle in the haystack.

Bed bugs produce a distinctive scent that even we can smell, if the infestation is large enough. Once you have an infestation that big though, it is very difficult to get rid of it. That is why it is so important to catch the creepy crawlies before they multiply.

Bed bugs are about as big as an apple seed and do not necessarily stick to your bed area. Dogs can be very effective and find a single bed bug – or even live eggs in a room within minutes. While they certainly are not always 100 percent spot-on, they are far more effective than any alternative. They are trained to give a specific cue, mostly a passive sit, once they found the requested scent.

It's quite a sight to watch a dog catch a faint whiff and work its way toward the source of the smell. Once found, the dog sits and waits excitedly for the reward – in most cases a toy or food.

It takes special dogs to work day by day, hunting for that specific critter. Typically they are overly active and very focused on either their toy or food – so much so, that they would do anything for it. They can not be fearful or frightened by dark rooms, shiny floors or confined spaces. They should be social, as they will encounter many people during work. Although many people believe, that beagles are the ideal breed for this particular detection, there are many breeds and mixes that work at least as well. The training typically takes 4 – 8 weeks, depending on the dog.

Here are a couple of common bed bug myths:

• Bed bugs are so small, they cannot be seen by the naked eye.
  This is probably the one line we hear the most. It seems, many people mistake bed bugs for mites. Depending on when their last meal was, they are 3mm to 5mm in size and dark to a lighter brown. They are flat if they haven't eaten for a while and blow up after a meal. Freshly hatched babies and eggs are more difficult to spot. Bed bugs are not clean and evidence can often be found: shed skins, blood and empty eggs.

For more information about bed bugs and bed bug detection dogs, visit RockSolidK9  or contact the author at nicole@rocksolidk9.com.