Purity Pest Control and Common Scents Solutions Adds Third Bed Bug-Detecting Dog

TORONTO – Vaughan-based Purity Pest Control Limited and Common Scents Solutions introduced it’s newest four-legged employee, “Inspector Heidi, ” a mix lab acquired from the Florida Canine Academy out of Safety Harbor, Fla. Heidi has been teamed up with her new handler Wendy Maeots.

Wendy and Heidi are the third certified K-9 bed bug detection team employed by Purity Pest Control Limited. “The response we have received has been overwhelming and we must look to the future if we are to keep up with the demand for K-9 bed bug inspections,” said Michael Goldman, president of Purity Pest Control Ltd. and Common Scents Solutions. The company now owns dogs Kody, Alexa and Heidi, all of which are certified bed bug detection dogs. “The bed bug problem in North America is only going to get worse before it gets better,” Goldman added.

More accurate detection means that if there is bed bug activity, Heidi, Alexa or Kody will alert Purity service professionals to it, so they can take the necessary control measures.

In Canada, dogs have been successfully used by the military and law enforcement agencies to locate firearms, ammunition, explosives, narcotics, missing persons and used in suspected arson cases. The same training used for these purposes is now being used to train dogs to search for bed bugs and termites. Alexa and Kody can smell through walls, floors and even underground - long before humans can see any visible signs.

How do “Inspector’s Kody and Alexa” do their work?

A dog must be correctly trained, led and interpreted. Once the dog has familiarized itself with the structure, the professionally trained handler guides the dog with special instructions on where to search. The handler observes and interprets his dogs behavior. Once the target insect is located, the dog performs what’s called a “passive alert”, where he will sit and point to the infested area.

What are the benefits of using dogs to detect bed bugs?

According to a report prepared by the Institute for Biological Detection Systems (IBDS) of Auburn University (Auburn, AL), dogs have the following capabilities:

• Sensitivity: Documented limits of olfactory detection for the dog range from tens of parts per billion to 500 parts per trillion.
• Discrimination: Dogs are extremely good at discriminating a target vapour from non-target vapors that are also present, even at relatively high concentrations of non-target odours.
• 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 odour discriminations.