SCOTS POOCH ON ELITE TEAM TO SNIFF OUT COVID
A SCOTS dog has joined a crack canine team fighting Covid-19 by training to sniff out the virus.
Ivan the Labrador-golden retriever, from Kinross, has found a new calling on the life-saving mission after it was decided he was unsuitable to be a Guide Dog.
The two year old is one of three new recruits assigned to a team of elite Medical Detection Dogs who began training in England this week and could soon be tasked with screening thousands of people every day.
The trio are being deployed as part of a pioneering trial to see if dogs could be used to detect coronavirus in public places.
Charity Guide Dogs originally bred Ivan and two other recruits, Maple and Spencer, to assist the blind but it was decided they should be donated to the Milton Keynes-based trial instead due to their “high energy”.
They could now act as a first-line of defence against the disease by picking out those infected from large crowds.
Guide Dogs Scotland, who raised
Ivan in the Arbroath area, said: “Our very own Ivan has joined the elite canine team fighting Covid-19 and we could not be more proud of him.
“If successful, these new recruits could be deployed as part of a trial to see if Covid-19 detection dogs could be used in public places to assist with rapid, non-invasive screening by identifying the odour of Covid-19.”
Medical Detection Dogs first started training animals to detect cancer in 2002.
The Covid-19 trial, backed by £500,000 of Government funding, will
be conducted by scientists from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Durham University.
If successful, Medical Detection Dogs believes the animals could be deployed to places like airports and sporting events, where they could screen up to 250 people per hour.
The charity is discussing rolling out the plan with international border agencies in several countries.
Detection dogs could also assist in mapping and intelligence gathering to provide “estimates of likely percentage of infected travellers on flights from ‘hotspot’ locations from around the world”.
Chris Allen, dog supply and training manager at Medical Detection Dogs, said: “Ivan’s personality is lovely. He’s very outgoing, he’s very confident. His is interest in searching for articless is really good.
“The dogs thoroughly enjoy working – it’s a big game. We’re using their willingness to please, e, their drive, their wanting to use e their nose, and shaping and redirecting it in a positive way.”