K-9 Unit

Bonnie	Vegas

We are the home of the Lower Mainland's first bedbug and carpenter ant detection dogs.

By now you may have heard about the bedbug problem that is infesting homes, hotels and institutions throughout the Lower Mainland, as well as major urban centres all over the world. Numerous stories and reports about these blood-sucking insects have been seen or heard on national and local media sources.

Peter & Vegas appear on Fanny Kiefer Show Click to Watch

The challenge that home and building owners, resident and property managers, hotel managers, maintenance staff and pest control operators have in controlling these pests, is that they can survive for a long period of time without a blood meal, they are excellent at hiding and are notorious for hitching rides onto furniture, clothes, luggage, etc. and thus entering homes or hotel suites. Once inside, pest control operators are challenged in finding them as they usually only come out at nighttime (i.e. when people are sleeping), they can hide in the smallest of cracks and crevices, and there are many areas that are not accessible for inspection (eg. behind walls, inside couches, arm chairs and mattresses). Therefore, operators are subject to treating as many areas within a room as they can in hopes of killing off these pests, but are constantly challenged by clutter, inaccessible areas and the uncertainty of where they are actually hiding.

Allow us to introduce 'Vegas' and 'Bonnie' – the Lower Mainland's first bedbug and carpenter ant detection dogs. These dogs, much like bomb, drug, arson, mold and termite dogs, were rescued from the kennel and are now trained to "sniff out" bedbugs and carpenter ants! Bonnie and Vegas went through hundreds of hours of training in the US to specifically identify where bedbugs and carpenter ants hide. The use of smell (as dogs smell in parts per trillion) instead of a visual inspection allows us to find these bugs anywhere in a room, even if they're in a wall void, mattress or couch, with greater accuracy than any human. To reinforce the smell of a bedbug and carpenter ant, our beagles go through daily training in our K-9 Scent Detection Training Facility, to keep up their high accuracy rating when they're out in the field.

Now that we've targeted exactly where these pests are hiding, we can reduce the amount of treatment time needed and focus on the problematic areas in a home or commercial establishment, saving on time and reducing chemical treatments, making for a greener and more proactive approach to eliminating these challenging pests.