Beagles and Bed Bugs

[jedimaster91]

Couldn't decide between here and the regular advice forum, so I flipped a coin.

No, I don't have bed bugs, thank goodness, but my city is on the list of most infested cities. I also have a beagle. Thanks to a Yahoo article I saw the other day, I came up with the brilliant idea of training Ziggy to sniff out bed bugs. It gives her a job to do and I could make a little extra money on the side.

Except I have no idea where to start.

Google turned up a company outside Cincinnati that uses dogs to find bed bugs and I've e-mailed them for advice. I also contacted a guy in Florida. However, I couldn't find any resources in my city (which I won't post publicly, but anyone with info can PM me and I'll let you know).

So and help from anyone with hunting/tracking dogs would be much appreciated. I taught her the basics--sit, stay, down--on my own, but I'm not sure how to teach her how to track a specific scent. Or where I can get eau de bed bug. Any information on certifying a working dog would also be appreciated.

[Seshat]

To teach her to locate a specific scent, put that scent and several other scents on cloths. Put the cloths under air-porous containers. When she identifies the container with the correct scent, reward her.

If she just looks at you like 'say what?', start by teaching her to identify a container. Put a food treat under one of them, out of her sight. Bring her in, she'll almost certainly go to the one with the treat. Reward her, and then give her the treat.

Then you switch to the cloths. Put all the cloths in their containers, and a treat in with the bedbug one.

When she's reliable with that, take out the treat.

Switch around the 'false scents' from time to time, so she doesn't learn to signal 'yes' for anything that isn't the 'false scent'. Also, sometimes don't have a bedbug scent at all - and reward her for signalling its absence.

You can teach her specific signals for 'yes' and 'no' by rewarding her for particular behaviours when she finds the right scent. Say, if she starts out by getting excited 'hey, my treat is under here!', you can tell her to sit before she gets the treat. Then she'll start to sit when she smells bedbugs.

You might want to give her a more unique signal. Maybe teach her to 'point' like a pointing hound.


As for eau de bedbug, I presume collecting bedbugs from an infested house might do it.... (ewww)

[trailerparkmedic]

I'd be very, very careful if you decide to do the training with live bedbugs in your home. My little sister had bedbugs and it was a nightmare to deal with and get rid of. I read an article about bedbug sniffing dogs and one owner stated they had spend a lot of money getting professional training for their dog (which was earned back fairly quickly) but it didn't say anything about where the training was done.

[jedimaster91]

I was hoping I could do it with squished bed bugs.

One person did get back to me and said her dog had 3 months of training and it cost her $10,000. I don't have that much spare cash just laying around. Heck, I don't really have any spare cash right now. So it looks like I'm going to have to do the training myself and freelance. So far I know of only one bug dog in Kentucky. I'm going to try to get in touch with the owner and see if she's willing to help me.