Dog has nose for bedbugs

Spots is a rat terrier, but he's a bulldog when it comes to bedbugs.

Spots is a trained bedbug detection dog. The Lincoln dog's expertise is narrow, and yet he is in great demand. So are others like him.

Bedbug infestations have been reported across the Midlands and the nation over the past several years. The insects had been virtually exterminated from the United States in the 1950s, but the powerful chemicals that helped wipe them out have been banned because of environmental concerns. And world travel is more common, so people are bringing more bedbugs home with them.

Douglas County documented 30 cases of bedbug infestation in the county two years ago, said Reid Steinkraus, the County Health Department sanitation control supervisor. So far this year, there have been three times as many. Iowa also is seeing an increase in bedbug problems, a public health official in Des Moines said.

Steinkraus said bedbugs don't transmit diseases. A bedbug stings and sucks blood with a proboscis, similar to a mosquito's stinger, which can cause itchiness.

Public concern has compelled officials to offer a $20 workshop on bedbugs Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Douglas-Sarpy County Cooperative Extension Office, 8015 West Center Road.

Spots will be there to show off his bedbug detection prowess. Barb Ogg, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln extension educator who also will present information at the workshop, said she has seen Spots in action.

“He is good,” Ogg said.

Spots received intense training to become a bed-bug detector. He graduated this year from Iron Heart Training Center in Shawnee, Kan. Matt Skogen, the owner and head trainer there, said his business used to consist mainly of training bomb- and drug-sniffing dogs for law enforcement.

Five years ago, he received his first call for a bedbug sniffing dog. In the last year, he said, he has sold 80 such dogs. Trained and certified bedbug detecting dogs sell for $7,000.

James Pelowski, a Lincoln resident who works with heating and air conditioning systems in hotels, saw a TV show about a bedbug sniffing dog a year ago. Pelowski recognized it as a growth industry.

He ordered a dog through Iron Heart, spent a week there in training with Spots and acquired the dog. Pelowski said he continues to train regularly with Spots with the scent of bedbugs and with an actual bedbug colony that he keeps.

Spots will sit beside a bed, point at a bug with his nose and, if an infestation is extreme, he will bark.

Pelowski said he and Spots are getting four to six jobs a week across Nebraska.

A New York Times article last week cited instances in which bedbug-sniffing dogs are providing false positives, leading to unnecessary expenditures of thousands of dollars for extermination services.

Skogen said people are jumping on the bandwagon and some don't have properly trained dogs. He provides certificates to the owners and orders them to conduct maintenance training with their dogs for 16 hours a week.

A University of Florida study done two years ago found that properly trained bedbug detection dogs are effective at least 95 percent of the time.

Pelowski said Spots has yet to blow a job.

“It's like a game of hide and seek,” Pelowski said of the dogs' attitude. “They love it.”

Pelowski, who charges a $75 minimum fee for Spots' service, doesn't perform the extermination. He said it's best if detection and extermination are done by separate businesses. An exterminator with a dog might have an interest in getting positive findings for bedbugs, he said, although many such services do use dogs.

The pests can be up to three-eighths of an inch long or extremely small and hard to see, Steinkraus said. They typically hide in cracks and crevices, such as outer seams in mattresses or cracks in box springs. They also can be found on couches and other areas.

Even if the adults are exterminated, they sometimes leave behind eggs. Four weekly treatments are sometimes necessary to exterminate an infestation, he said, and the homeowner or tenant must be diligent about regular vacuuming during that period to suck up eggs.

Bedbugs sometimes will move to other apartments or houses by climbing on a host.

Pelowski said: “They don't jump and they don't fly, but they hitchhike on everything.”

Contact the writer:

444-1123, rick.ruggles@owh.com

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