Dogs have been used to effectively detect a wide variety of different subjects and substances such as: drugs, explosive materials, fugitives, molds, cancers, endangered species, termites and other insects. So why not use man's best friend to sniff out bedbugs?
From a single drop of urine, a sniffing dog learns the marking animal's sex, diet, health, emotional state, and even whether it's dominant or submissive; friend or foe.
Tracking dogs follow a biochemical trail of dead skin cells, sweat, odor molecules, and gasses.
For dogs, a scent article is like a three-dimensional "odor image" - It is much more detailed than a photograph is for a person.
Dogs can track a scent through snow, air, mud, water, and even ash.
Bedbugs are no longer associated with sub-standard living conditions. They do not discriminate between rich or poor; clean or dirty. They are interested in the one thing we all have in common- WARM RED BLOOD.
Perception causes bedbugs to be automatically associated filth regardless of actual conditions. However, bedbug infestations have nothing to do with socioeconomic status or cleanliness. They could be anywhere, in anyone's home. They are excellent hitchhikers - you can pick them up anywhere you have gone in the last month.
Oftentimes, people think they've done something wrong when they have bedbugs, even though they haven't. In reality, it's just another bug, one that is very difficult to find and kill.
Bedbugs do have one thing that works to their disadvantage: they have a distinct and unique scent - nothing else smells like a bedbug.
Bailey's training has been targeted to that scent and this is what makes her so effective when it comes to finding bedbugs.
A properly-trained and certified detection dog is recognized in court as a "scientific instrument"
(US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals).
According to a report prepared by the Institute for Biological Detection Systems (IBDS) of Auburn University dogs have the following capabilities:
Sensitivity:
Documented limits of olfactory detection for A dog range from tens of parts per billion to 500 parts per trillion.
Discrimination: Dogs are extremely good at discriminating a target vapor from non-target vapors that are also present, even at relatively high concentrations of non-target odors.
Odor Signatures: When being trained to detect a substance, dogs learn to alert to one or two of its most abundant vapor compounds.
Multiple Odor Discriminations: Dogs can easily learn as many as ten odor discriminations.