For the Observer-Reporter
newsroom@observer-reporter.com
Bedbugs may be repulsive to almost everyone, but not to Jack.
A 2-year-old Jack Russell terrier, Jack loves nothing more than seeking out the speck-sized, wingless, biting insects that hide in mattresses and pillows. He is one of a growing number of bedbug-detecting dogs that have become a big business with a resurgence in infestations in hotels, dormitories and homes.
Jack is owned by Gretta MacIntyre of Avella, the owner of Wild Goose Chase, a company with offices in Pennsylvania and Ohio that uses border collies to humanely remove geese from golf courses and other public places. Her latest endeavor is a bedbug-detection business, using her specially trained pooch.
During a recent demonstration, Jack arrived intensely focused and ready to work.
Sporting a shirt that read "You Can Sleep Tight With Jack," MacIntyre brought Jack into a room in which she had hidden two glass vials topped with mesh that contained the bugs.
"Find your B's," MacIntyre instructed the dog. Immediately, Jack went on the prowl, sniffing in corners, lifting chair cushions and nosing in cupboards.
"Good boy, Jack," said MacIntyre as Jack began pawing furiously at a chair cushion under which a vial had been hidden. "Good boy," she repeated as she dispensed treats and lots of praise.
"Jack has to work to eat, and I truly believe he would rather work than eat," she added. Indeed, the compact, muscular dog seemed more interested in sniffing out bugs than in being petted.
MacIntyre said the resurgence in bedbugs is partly because of the increase in international travel.
"I've been working with Jack since March, and the work has been steady," she said. "We've been called to search motels in Pittsburgh and, lately, Columbus (Ohio), and unfortunately for humans, it looks like I might be going up and down the East Coast."
Dr. Amy Cink of Claysville Animal Hospital said she believes it's possible to train a dog to detect just about anything because they have such a highly developed sense of smell.
"Dogs can identify smells somewhere between 1,000 times to 10,000 times better than humans," said Cink.
Pepe Peruyero of J&K Canine Academy in High Springs, Fla., where Jack was trained, concurred. He said the industry developed because of the alarming rise in bedbug infestations and the lack of any tool for early detection.
"The concept is similar to training a narcotics dog, which is exposing the dog to the scent you wish him to identify and then teaching him to alert on that scent, then rewarding him for doing so," said Peruyero.
"Dogs can be trained to detect low levels of infestation, which is as few as one bedbug or one or two viable eggs," he said.
Peruyero has tested the concept in collaboration with entymologists at the University of Florida.
MacIntyre says Jack can search a room in two minutes compared to an hour or more for a human, with a 98 percent success rate.
"It's also very green. If Jack only finds bedbugs in one room, that is all you need to spray," she said, adding that his 131/2 pound-size makes it easy for him to get into tight spaces.
A visit from Jack costs a minimum of $250.
MacIntyre says she has been working with dogs longer than she cares to admit. She has livestock guardian dogs, herding border collies, geese dogs and now Jack.
"Wild Goose Chase was very successful. A lot of the places we cleared remain cleared today," said MacIntyre. "I wanted to do something else, and I wanted it to be creative, so I researched a long time and this is what I came up with - a bedbug dog."
For more information, visit sleeptightllc.biz.