Bedbug dog ‘always raring to go’
SASKATOON When Ken Linville puts on his red work shirt, his seven-year-old German short-haired pointer gets so excited she starts spinning in circles.
Mikki is going to work as well, and she can’t wait.
Her task? To sniff out bedbugs. To the best of Linville’s knowledge, Mikki is the only bedbug dog in Saskatoon and one of only two in Saskatchewan. She has been trained to sniff through rooms and buildings and sit when her highly sensitive nose picks up a whiff of bedbugs or their eggs.
Mikki was trained at a facility in Florida and began her career in Fort Mcmurray, Alberta, where she inspected work camps. When the economy in Fort Mcmurray slumped, her work dried up as well. She was purchased in 2015 by Focuss Canada, a Saskatchewanbased company that does work in security, investigations and dog services.
Linville loves dogs and had opportunities to be involved in training narcotics dogs in the past. When someone from Focuss Canada called him and asked if he wanted to be a dog handler, he accepted immediately.
However, the market for narcotics dogs was full and there was a catch: “How about a bedbug dog ?”
“I said, ‘I’ll get back to you,’ ” Linville recalls.
Through an internet search, he learned that working with a bedbug dog is not much different than working with a narcotics dog and that the risk of him bringing bedbugs into his own home was minimal. He accepted the position.
Over the last three years, Linville and Mikki have inspected a wide variety of places for bedbugs and business has grown as more people and businesses learn they exist. The pair goes through condo buildings, care homes and entertainment venues. They also have a contract to inspect Saskatoon’s public libraries.
Linville said Mikki can suss out bedbugs faster than someone visually inspecting for the pests, and is able to sniff out critters that may be hiding in cracks and not visible to people.
When she smells bedbugs, she sits and Linville rewards her with her toy. The ecstatic dog grabs it and runs more circles.
“She’s very keen to work,” Linville says. “Always raring to go.”