Ever called a pest exterminator because you suspected bed bugs in your home? If so, you understand the worry that weighed down your mind — whether the exterminators would find anything. If you do have bed bugs, you want them caught quickly. Just two bed bugs can multiply into hundreds within a month, creating a much more difficult situation to treat.
When a bed bug infestation is just beginning, it can be tough to detect the problem. Because bed bugs are so tiny, even human inspectors sometimes miss their presence. We don’t have microscopic eyesight and sense of smell. But we know someone who does.
Our four-legged friend, the domestic dog, puts our 6 million olfactory receptors to shame with its 300 million, according to PBS.org. That makes a dog’s sense of smell 50 times more formidable than ours. When combined with a their advanced brain power for analyzing scents — stronger than ours by 40 times — dogs make the perfect bed bug-detecting machines.
Platinum Pest Solutions, an exterminator near Chicago, works with four bed bug sniffing dogs who help us find bed bugs in customers’ homes:
• Lincoln, a Belgian shepherd
• Ringo, a Jack Russell terrier
• Prue, a Jack Russell terrier (and Ringo’s sister)
• Plato, a German shorthaired pointer
Working with the National Entomology Scent Detection Canine Association, our pest exterminator business certified each of the dogs to help us inspect homes and businesses. Our dogs have dramatically improved our bed bug detection rate, with a 95% successful inspection rate in just one-third the time of our human inspectors.
Our dogs sniff around the home or business, finding both live bed bugs and bed bug eggs in even the smallest places. They have allowed us to serve our pest exterminator customers with even more efficiency and accuracy.
We do 50 inspections with our bed bug sniffing dogs each day, and can usually schedule them quickly. Call us at (708) 206-2847 or contact us to get a free home or business pest inspection anywhere in the Chicago area and northwest Indiana.
