Yes! Here’s Why:
The Science of a Canine’s Nose
The source of a dog’s incredible sense of smell is its nasal cavity. This cavity is rich with blood vessels and nerve endings that connect to a highly developed olfactory center in the brain. Olfaction or the act or process of smelling, is a dog’s primary special sense. A dog’s sense of smell is said to be a thousand times more sensitive than that of humans. In fact, a dog has more than 220 million olfactory receptors in its nose, while humans have only 5 million. Moreover, a dog’s scent organ (inside its nose) is about four times larger than that of a human.
The biology and training of each bed bug dog allows it to perform bed bug detection with up to 98% accuracy from minute particles of scent and to translate it into action.
An example illustrates the difference between a human nose and a dog nose: if both species walked into a bakery, the person will smell the bread baking; a dog will smell the flour, yeast, butter, salt, shortening, sugar and water separately!
Bed Bug Sniffing Dogs Receive Training and Have Careers To Maximize These Skills
Canines have many different careers as working dogs. Dogs’ noses are used to detect narcotics, bombs, fire accelerants, escaped convicts, missing people, disaster victims, and even mold and insects. K-9 teams are employed at airports, military bases, police departments, fire departments, border control points, and as parts of search and rescue teams. Dogs have even been trained to detect cancer (including colon and lung cancer) and health problems affiliated with diabetes.
Canines are employed in the pest control industry for bed bug detection and termite detection.
Each of Bell Environmental’s bed bug sniffing dogs graduated from top canine academies with master trainers who specifically taught them to alert to live bed bugs and their eggs. Our canines are trained for hundreds of hours in bed bug detection. The handlers also attend these canine academies and complete intensive training before entering the field with their bed bug dog counterparts. The handling team receives certification before entering the field.
These certifications are actively maintained by working with master trainers. Our bed bug dog handlers are also senior inspectors who understand beg bugs’ biology and proclivity to hide.
Our dogs each have only one handler, and it is the bed bug dog handling team that is certified together.
Posted in: Bed Bug Dog Inspection