2 weeks Ago
DEAR PET TALK: Given that dogs’ noses are more than 10,000 times more sensitive than a human’s schnoz, they must be overwhelmed with scents. How do they ignore the ones that don’t apply to whatever they’re sniffing for? — Nat Segaloff, Hollywood, CA DEAR NAT: Colby Julien, owner of “Geo-Sniffing” an Illinois company offering “The Ultimate Nose-Powered Hide & Seek” dog-training tools explains the difference between humans’ ability to process scents, and those of dogs, whose “scent-processing brain is 40 times larger than ours. Think of it like this: dogs have a modern high-resolution graphics card, while humans are stuck with a 1990s pixelated version.
Dogs’ “scent pixels” create a vivid, detailed smellscape their brains process effortlessly and dogs learn to “tune out” smells that are not of interest of them.” Diana Ludwiczak, owner of Doctor Sniffs Bed Bug Dogs, has trained her dogs to sniff out bed bugs and other pests — and she and her working dogs are “very busy” in and around New York City. “In the beginning stages of a canine learning, a specific scent is all about repetition and rewarding them.
So soon enough, they begin to associate the target odor with a reward., she explains. Ludwiczak’s process of training includes adding “distractors” and “not rewarding the dog” when they respond to distractors.
She has three working dogs, Ecko and Southy who are Shepherd mixes, and Goosey (coonhound/pitbull background). Each dog is “different in terms of how they learned the bug odor, and how to sniff them out,” she said. The Shepherd mixes were under a year old when Ludwiczak adopted them, and “got certified very quickly.
” Goosey took a little longer, as she was older when she began the process, but all three dogs are hard workers. This week, they are in a courthouse in the city which reported a bed bug outbreak. “Much of our work is last-minute emergency calls, and trying to help people determine if their bites are from bed bugs or not,” Ludwiczak adds.
And whether bed bugs are found — or not — Echo, Southy, and Goosey live an unusual and rich life with a constantly changing “smellscape” of very interesting odors! I enjoyed looking at Ludwiczak’s trained dogs make the rounds of various hotel rooms on Youtube, and think you will too. Search “K9 inspection” on Youtube, or visit their Youtube channel: “Doctor Sniffs Bed Bug Dogs” Sally Cragin is the director of Be PAWSitive: Therapy Pets and Community Education. Send questions to sallycragin@gmail.
com..
