K9 Detection
For years dogs have been used as trained scent detectors and they are now hard at work helping us fight the battle against bed bugs. With their incredibly sensitive nose and the training we give them, our dogs are able to detect bed bugs with amazing accuracy. We train and certify our dogs on live bed bugs and viable eggs. This means they can tell the difference between live and dead bed bugs and also the cast off skin and feces bed bugs leave behind.
Our bed bug dogs are much faster, more reliable and are far more accurate than conventional methods. The single biggest advantage is their increased accuracy and efficiency over human detection. This can only be achieved when our dogs are paired with our top notch handlers, and like any tool, if it is not used correctly, it will not perform up to its potential.
Bed Bug Dog Accuracy
Auburn University and the Institute of Biological Detection Systems (IBDS) reported that dogs have the following capabilities:
- Sensitivity: Dogs have a documented range of olfactory detection that goes from ten parts per billion to 500 parts per trillion.
- Discrimination: If other odours are present a trained dog can discriminate between the target vapour and non-target vapours, even if non-target odours are in high concentrations.
- Signature Odours: After being trained to detect a particular substance, dogs will learn to alert to one or two of the abundant vapour compounds.
- Odour Discrimination: Dogs can easily learn to discriminate up to ten different odours. Our dogs are trained to alert to only live bed bugs and viable eggs.
More information about our K9 teams:
How Do K9 Inspections Work?
K9 NESDECA Certification
Bed Bug Detection Programs
