Dogs have won the battle of which bed bug inspection method is best, just has dogs had long ago won the battle of which method is best for bomb detection. What our Federal government learned after many years of study, many years of testing alternative detection methods, and many billions of dollars spent, was that a K9 routinely delivered the most accurate results available in establishing the presence of an explosive.
The industry statistic attributed to a dog’s accuracy rate in finding bed bugs is 97.5%, and that’s an excellent percentage. Yet, there’s only one company in the country that can provide documentation that their dogs tested to that rate, and that’s J&K Canine Academy in Alachua, FL. The doumentation they can provide is the study that they subjected their dogs to, which was compiled by a 3rd party: the University of Florida. The U of F monitored and confirmed the ability of J&K’s dogs to detect the presence of live bed bugs to that percentage, in an environment where dogs were penalized for false positives, and where distractors (non-bed bugs, dead bed bugs) were in place to insure their dogs were capably able to differentiate what they were trained to search for.
In an environment where some companies are self-training their dogs, or using local kennels to provide scent-detection K9 training, it goes without saying that any trainer’s claim of any accuracy rate should be documented & available upon request. Additionally, a K9’s certification should be upholding that dog’s training to the highest standard, as NESDCA (National Entomology Scent Detection Canine Association) does when it certifies a J&K-trained dog.
Having always utilized J&K graduates certainly adds to our confidence when we’re hired to perform bed bug inspections throughout the tri-state area, and we never hesitate to promote the dog’s training background. If you have any additional questions about a dog’s detection capability, please call us anytime and we’ll be happy to explain in further detail.