Article

Dog sniffs out tiny pests

5/29/2008

Rosemary Westwood, The Edmonton Journal

Published: Thursday, May 29, 2008

EDMONTON - Bedbugs have a new foe with a powerful proboscis. Oscar, a Labrador-cross specially trained to sniff out the blood-sucking pests, joined the Edmonton Orkin Pest Control team in January and has been locating bedbugs and their eggs in hotels, motels and apartments.

Because bedbugs are so small -- the size of an apple seed -- they can squeeze into small crevices in baseboards, mattresses and boxsprings. They are nocturnal and often hide during the day or when there’s light, making them tough for exterminators to see. But the bugs can’t hide from Oscar’s keen sense of smell. After being rescued from a shelter in Florida by his previous owner, Oscar was trained to pick up the scent of bedbugs, their eggs and byproducts the way dogs are trained to sniff out illegal drugs. His heightened sense of smell is due to the fact that Labradors and other detection dogs have a much greater number of scent receptors in their noses, making the scent information they receive three-dimensional and more intricate than a photograph is for a human.

Todd Maslyk of Orkin said the dogs are 90- to 95-per-cent accurate in finding bedbugs and bedbug eggs hidden under floorboards, behind walls and even inside chairs. Exterminators can only treat residences if there is evidence of bedbugs. Oscar’s nose is helping Orkin treat more infestations. “The key for bedbugs is finding it early so they can be treated before the infestation gets too large, and that’s where the dog comes in handy,“ Oscar’s handler Dave Labelle said. Oscar is faster and more accurate than a typical inspector, completing a room in five minutes compared to the typical 45. Oscar has two canine colleagues in Toronto, but Labelle said Oscar is the only dog he knows of working in Western Canada.

“I think it’s a very useful method and another means to help people determine if there’s a bedbug problem, and to help the heavily infested areas or buildings,“ said Ken Dong, Capital Health Authority’s environmental health officer. “Since we have this continuing bedbug problem in major cities, that method will grow.“ Edmonton’s bedbug infestation has hit a plateau, and pest control agencies say the problem won’t disappear through use of current methods and pesticides. “It’s becoming a health problem,“ said Tory Kaiser, owner of Academy Pest Control. “I’ve seen some pretty bad instances when thousands and thousands (of bedbugs) are eating off one guy.“ The rise in bedbug population in the past few years has meant that some companies in Edmonton see bedbug calls contributing to up to 60 per cent of their business, and the bugs aren’t going away. “I would say half of the apartment blocks have bedbugs in them,“ said Gladys Schultz, owner of Edmonton Exterminators.

Bedbugs feed on human blood. Because their bite is painless, often the first sign of bedbugs are small drops of blood on bed sheets or squashed bugs in the bed. An increase in travel has helped the spread of bedbugs, as has the banning of effective but dangerous chemicals such as DDT, which last longer than the chemicals currently being used. Kaiser said an insecticide that can more effectively battle bedbugs might be needed, even if the chemical is only registered for use against bedbugs. While bedbugs don’t spread disease, they can cause sleeplessness and stress.

Maslyk said he expects bedbugs could become the No. 1 pest in the next 10 years. If that proves true, Oscar might not be the only dog exterminator in town for very long.