Hunting Tiny Vampires

Canine detectives go under covers to find bed bugs

By Tamra Monahan

 

In homes all across the United States, there are tiny vampires lurking. Bur­rowed deep in their dark hideaways, these monsters wait for a chance to creep out of the shadows and suck the blood of humans.

These blood-sucking fiends are bed bugs, and their worst enemies are clever dogs.
Bed bugs are tiny, generally the size of an apple seed, sometimes as small as a freckle, but they are relentless creatures that live to drink our blood. Although bed bug bites are not harmful, they are annoying, especially when the infesta­tion is huge. Imagine slipping into your cozy bed at night, drifting off to sleep, then waking in the morning to find your body covered in small welts, and you have no idea what happened during the night.

These bugs are sneaky, but they’re no match for the cunning nose of a well-trained dog. With their snouts buried in the sheets, under the mattress, and in the couch cushions, bed bug detection dogs are heat-seeking missiles on a mis­sion to uncover bugs in your bed.

Bed bugs have not always been a huge problem in the U.S. By the late 1960s, pesticides had almost eradicated the biting beasts. However, in the late 1990s, the bugs returned with a ven­geance, infesting hotels, apartments, dorm rooms, homeless shelters, up­scale suburban homes, and any place with beds and furniture. Pest con­trol companies are flooded with calls from frantic people who want these pests destroyed.

But destroying the bugs is only half the battle. First, you have to find them, and that’s the hardest part. The solution is not human, it’s canine.

“A dog is almost like an MRI machine walking into a room,” says Pepe Peruye­ro, owner of J&K Canine Academy in High Springs, Florida. “People only have access to about 30 percent of a room because we can’t see into walls or mat­tresses or under carpet, but a dog’s nose can detect what we can’t see.”

Entomology detection dogs are skillful detectives because they not only have to find bugs, they must find the right bugs. When inspecting a room, it’s important for the dog to search for one type of insect, such as bed bugs, ignoring any­thing else he encounters. To ensure that his dogs are properly trained in detect­ing specific types of bugs, Pepe worked with scientists at the University of Florida with remarkable results.

The accuracy rate of humans finding bed bugs is between 20 and 40 percent. However, using a dog increases the ac­curacy to about 90 percent. The reason is simple: smell versus sight. Bed bugs are incredibly tiny and they love to hide until a person settles in their vicinity. Then they sneak out unnoticed and feed on the host, sucking tiny amounts of blood. Finding bed bugs when they’re hiding is tremendously difficult, but a dog doesn’t have to see the bugs. He can smell them, whether they’re inside a drawer, under a mattress, or in the crev­ice of a headboard.
One of the best bed bug canines in Colorado is Macaroni, a rescued shelter dog whose mixed-breed heritage helps him hunt bugs. Combining the track­ing skills of a Labrador Retriever with the nose of a Beagle and the wiriness of a Whippet, this friendly little mutt is a tireless bug hunter whose main joy in life is finding pests for his owner Walter Penny.

And this dog’s nose can detect a bug’s stench very quickly. What may take a human hours to find, a dog can discover in a matter of minutes. According to Walter, Macaroni can do a whole house in the time it would take a human to do one hotel room, and it’s important to have the dog search the entire house or apartment. They may be called bed bugs, but they also hide in drawers, couches, chairs, tables, anything with a secluded spot out of the limelight.

Entomology detection dogs are trained to perform passive alerts instead of pawing at the areas where they discover insects, to avoid ruining furniture and bed linens. When Macaroni finds bed bugs, he alerts Walter by lying down and pointing to the spot with his nose. Then this clever canine is rewarded with some kibble or a playful tug on his fa-vorite toy.


Macaroni is so good at his job that he once found one single bed bug hidden under a comforter, a blanket, two sheets, and a mattress cover. Walter noticed that his dog had alerted to the center of the bed, but bugs generally stay away from this area unless they are feeding on people, so he thought Macaroni was mistaken. Try as he might, Walter could not get his dog to budge from the spot, and sure enough, he found one tiny bed bug crawling across the center of the mattress, under layers of covers.

”I think the fact that Macaroni can find these tiny bugs is amazing,” says Walter, “but when he put his nose right on that one bed bug under all those covers, that was really great.”

Bed bugs are stealthy pests that may be able to fool humans, but these blood­sucking little beasties are no match for the astonishing nose of a dog.