In the 1980s the pest control industry utilized many new products that helped us do our jobs better. One of the most interesting is man's best friend, the termite detection dog. TADD Services Co. of San Carlos, Calif. was the first "dog company" on the scene. A few training companies have duplicated some of TADD Service Co.'s techniques. Beacon Dogs Inc. of Annapolis, Md., now sells trained dogs to pest control companies. And I have heard about another company in San Antonio, Texas that has trained its own dogs.
I have always wanted to learn more about termite detection dogs. The cost prohibited my small company from obtaining a dog when they were first introduced. With some hard work and some Irish luck, I have now become a termite detection dog handler. My dog was provided by Pest Police of Globe, Ariz., and the trainer is Michael Hill. The training method used by Pest Police is a modified German method used for drug dogs. In the fall of 1992, our companies did a military housing complex together in Texas. Over the past two years, I have learned about termite detection dogs both their benefits and their shortcomings.
The stereotypical termite detection dog is a beagle. Pest Police prefers to use Australian cattle dogs, commonly known as the Queensland blue, blue heeler and Australian heeler breeds. The dogs are picked at the age of one to two years old. Many of these dogs do not qualify when a series of tests are conducted on them. Believe it or not, some of the dogs that have been chosen have actually been pulled out of animal shelters because the previous owner felt they were too active and aggressive, which is one good characteristic of a search dog for this breed. Both female and male dogs are utilized as search dogs.
The dogs must enjoy playing more than anything in the world. They must be curious about the environment around them and unafraid to discover new places and things. Of course, not all dogs fit this profile.
FALSE ALARMS. Once a dog is trained, the handler must also be trained. I have found that the dog is only as good as the handler's interpretation of how the dog is reacting to the odors in a house. Many times when you are doing searches in a home, there are odors that the dog handler and the customer have no control over. The dog will focus on these odors. The handler has to decide whether the dog's actions represent an "alert" (the term used to indicate the dog has found termites) or something else. If the handler feels the dog is reacting to other odors, he must pull the dog away and refocus it on the search.
Odors such as another dog's markings in a house, pet food or cat-sprayed areas may force the search dog to give the impression of an alert, or at least that an interest in termites is taking place. A dog's capabilities of smell are certainly better than a man's, but the dog's instincts have to be overcome during a search. I always try to give my dog a long break before the search to get her general sniffing out of her system.
I have also encountered homes that have had a lot of pesticides sprayed along the baseboards. My father once told me a story about bloodhounds that were brought in by a sheriff's department to track a prisoner. The dog handlers and bloodhounds arrived, but the officers at the scene left their squad car engines running. The fumes covered up the scent of the prisoner.
We have to realize that the scents the dogs are supposed to find can be overridden by other odors, and this has to be accounted for in providing a good search. If proper quality control is used in training the dog to concentrate on the specific odor of termites, then some of these obstacles can be overcome.
The main goal with my dog is to get her excited enough to play. You can work a dog too much, and we saw that occur during the Laughlin Air Force Base job with one of the male dogs, Storm. If a search dog is unhappy, it will not give its handler accurate information. In some cases, the dog may not even be working.
ONE EAGER POOCH. My dog usually cannot wait to go into a house once I stop the van. She usually runs to the door once I let her out of her cage. If anyone needs motivation, it is probably me. When we do the search she will react to termite infested areas by becoming excited, which the dog handler calls an active alert. (Many drug dogs are trained to sit down and look at the handler, which is known as a passive alert.)
My dog will sometimes focus on the first place that she reacts. I will go into the house twice trying to confuse her into checking other areas more thoroughly. The first run-through also will calm my dog down so that she is not as excited. My job as a handler is to read her reactions and to keep her moving so that she does not focus on one location.
In Dallas, Texas, where my company is located, at one time there was a TADD dog, a Beacon dog, and my dog at three separate companies. I have had customers discuss the use of the other two dogs in their homes. I have made the following recommendations in conjunction with my findings with the behavior of my dog:
• People with pets that mark territory in the home may get more false alerts of unknown reaction areas. I recommend these areas be thoroughly cleaned before we do the search.
• Air conditioning in homes will pull odors away from certain areas, such as under the bathtub and in the walls. Air conditioning and heating units need to be turned off when inspections are done.
• Termites that enter the outside walls may not be detected if the pressure of air flow is going out of the house. (Weather conditions could affect the search.)
• A large termite population may excite the dog, but the dog may not be able to pinpoint the exact location of the termite entry tube.
• The entrance into the home is not always the major source of termite activity. The major activity could be occurring on the ceiling in an inaccessible area. The dog search may be of no benefit if the purpose was to find the source of entry or a secondary colony.
• Ceramics and tile floors, walls and showers will most likely make odors of the termite impossible to penetrate if they are properly sealed.
Many of these conditions can be avoided. But the odors and distractions will have to be overcome in proper quality control programs in which odors such as other animals, foods, etc., are used during training and regular weekly quality control testing to ensure that the search dogs focus on the subject odor. The dog should be praised only when it is concentrating on the termites, and not the other odor sources.
NEW GENERATION. I wanted to update you on the first generation termite dogs before I introduce you to some new uses we have found with some newly trained dogs here in Texas. My father, Homer Fincannon, has trained bloodhounds to detect specific termite colonies. Bloodhounds produce enough slobber to sink a ship, so they should not be used in a home. However, we feel they will be an excellent asset when the new termiticide baits are used.
Bloodhounds have been trained as specialists, whereas our Australian cattle dogs are trained as generalists when it comes to detecting colonies. Bloodhounds can actually detect specific colonies.
Studies have been done in relationship to aggressive behavior between termite colonies of the same species. Two papers by Susan C. Jones discuss this phenomenon. Field Observations of Intercolony Aggression and Territory Changes in Heterotermes aureus is the most recent paper. Heterotermes aureus, also commonly referred to as the desert subterranean termite, is found primarily in portions of California and Arizona, and along the western coast of Mexico. Something in the environment, biology and/or genetics of H. aureus allows these termites to sense the invasion of other termites of the same species. What are the same termite species detecting that is different between competing colonies?
We know that the generalist dogs such as my heeler are probably picking up the odor of the gas produced by the termites when they consume wood. The bloodhounds are picking up not only the gas the termites produce, but also an unknown odor or pheromone that fingerprints the colony.
On several occasions, I have obtained five different termite colonies of eastern subterranean termites (Reticulitermes flavipes) from parts of Dallas. We have conducted controlled tests with the bloodhounds. My father was the dog handler, and I would place at least four different colonies in the yard.
The dogs would then be given the scent of one of the colonies, or in some cases, none of the colonies. Once the dog found the colony, the next colony odor was given to the dog. Once it found that colony, we went to the next colony. All the termites were placed in the same type of paper envelopes. There was also a live termite colony in a tree stump in the same yard area. The only time the dogs reacted to the tree stump is when we gave them the odor of these termites.
There have been a couple of tests when the dogs had problems picking up the odor. We believe the windy conditions during that test day forced the odor of the termites to float to various areas around the compound. This confused the animals a couple of times. We noticed the dog would put his head up in the air and then run to the wall of the house, as if the odor was being carried to this area.
DOGS & BAITS. We believe the new termite detection dogs will be beneficial in that they can pinpoint the areas on a property where a termite colony is located. Live termites can be pulled from inside the home, and the dogs can search around the property for the other colony members and improve the placement for termite baits.
After treatment with baits, dogs can be used to verify whether the colony has been eradicated or not. Susan Jones' Arizona studies on interspecies aggression indicate there might be satellite colonies that could be present. She noted they had marked two separate colonies, but when the two were placed together, they did not fight. It could be that this colony was connected with the other colony at one time, but the two were somehow separated. If termites are recognizing their satellite colony, it is possible that these satellites might reinfest areas more quickly than a foreign colony.
The bait studies in Indiana indicated another colony attacked the test house. They thought it was another colony. The dogs can verify these satellite colonies without the aid of colored filter paper, which is usually gone in a matter of weeks. A satellite colony may not even be eating from the same sources until the main colony is destroyed.
GENERATION GAP. Understanding the abilities of the second-generation termite dogs will allow us to solve the problems with today's current use of first-generation termite dogs. The odors of termites involve more than just the gas that the dogs detect. Companies need to be careful in the use of one colony for training, or the dog many start to pick up these fingerprint colony odors and may begin to become less accurate.
As for the explanation of why dogs may continue to pick up odors in areas that have been successfully treated, I believe dogs are picking up this same fingerprint odor that may be left behind in the tubes of the colony. If this is one of the odors the dogs use to alert, then the dog may alert on the area even if the termites are no longer there.
Of course, many of the techniques of sampling and storage cannot be shared. However, individuals interested in our new dogs may contact me in Dallas. We are establishing a program so that pest control professionals can learn how to find a dog that fits the profile of a termite-specific colony detection dog, and so that they can learn the methods to train and utilize a dog for the new termite baiting techniques.
David Fincannon is president of A-All Pest Termite Exterminator of Dallas, Texas, a company his parents founded in 1964. He is a graduate of Purdue University's urban and industrial pest control program.
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Termite Dog Q&A Q. Why will dogs continue to alert on an area even though a successful treatment has been done? A. It is my understanding that some pest control companies who use dogs will no longer search a house twice because of these false alerts. One theory is the dog remembers the location. I have another theory that I will discuss toward the end of this article. Q. Is there a difference between dogs that are given rewards after a termite alert vs. dogs that receive only play as a reward? A. I have had customers witness a lot of alerts in their homes, and they saw the dog given the food rewards. I looked with a scope in many of these areas and could not find anything. I have had other PCOs witness the same problem of alerts with no visible evidence in homes. I have had a former handler tell me that random rewards are fine, but the handler's voice is the most important tool in working a dog, and is eventually the only reward necessary. Q. How accurate are termite dogs? A. Dogs will have bad days just like people. Dog handlers will have bad days, too. The statement should read that dogs could be X% more accurate than a visual inspection. However, I would have to see the statistics on the accuracy of a visual inspection. I don't think they have ever been compiled. Q. Relatively speaking, how important are the pest control and entomological skills of a dog handler in contributing to his/her overall ability to locate termites utilizing a detection dog? A. It is best if the dog handler is a former termite technician or inspector. Sometimes I think some handlers may depend more on their dogs than on themselves. The dog handler needs to use his inspection abilities as much as his ability to inspect a home with a dog. Q. Are termite detection dogs as good as other devices on the market? A. Vernard Lewis, a University of California-Berkeley extension entomologist, did some tests a couple years ago on all the devices. This information was discussed in a paper by Barbara Thorne entitled "Alternative Approaches to Termite Detection and Control." The test showed that termite detection dogs were about 83% correct, compared to the gas detector, which was 50% correct. There was some argument about the test from the gas detector company that the field gas from colonies is stronger. Nevertheless, it shows us that dogs do work, and that they do so with low concentrations of termite odor. For the reasons mentioned previously, they may not be as accurate in the field. This would also have to be said about the gas devices because of the other field-related occurrences such as ventilation. I believe the termite detection dog is one of the best inspection tools. Second best is having an inspector making visual confirmation with scopes. But nothing should challenge the importance of a well-trained and experienced inspector with a flashlight, a screwdriver, and perhaps a flexible mirror. Q. Can dogs be trained to alert for more than one wood-destroying insect? A. The dogs can be trained. But the handler may not be able to interpret the alert unless the trainer can find damage or an insect to verify the reason for it. 
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