In dog we trust

In dog we trust!

“It is a gimmick isn’t it?”

If we had a pound for every time we heard that! Well we could all retire to a nice island somewhere hot and sunny.

People often ask what the point of having a dog in to search for bed bugs when they are big enough to see with the naked eye. Well the picture above was taken on a head board. It shows a 3.5” section of the upholstery tacks and hiding somewhere in the picture is a stage 2 bed bug nymph.

Now, our dogs would have absolutely no trouble locating the bug and alerting us that there is an infestation in the room (because if there is a nymph then there is at least 1 adult and all the other nymphs). An average size room will take the dog about  1-2 minutes  to search and there is very little that needs to be moved for the dogs to carry out the search. By contrast to carry out a visual search will generally take around half an hour and virtually all the furniture will need to be turned over and rearranged once the search is concluded(often adding another 15 mins or more to the search time).

The other advantage a canine search has over a visual search is a visual search can only give a positive indication if there is visible evidence such as faecal marking, shed casings, eggs or live bugs; and there is every possibility that these could be out of site (such as behind skirting boards), this presents no problem to the dog as they are relying solely on their sense of smell so even if the bugs are out of sight our sniffer dogs will still let us know that the bugs are there.

So when we say in dog we trust! We really do and with good reason.

Just in case you were wondering here is the picture again this time we have circled the little bu**er!!

Till next time

Sleep tight

Pete