In 2017, 97% of pest professionals said that they had treated bed bugs during the year. Many pest control professionals found that demand for bed bug services was increasing. Bed bugs are often found in single-family homes, apartments, and hotels/motels.

Pest control professionals have several ways of detecting and treating bed bug infestations. One of the possible ways to detect bed bugs is by using sniffer dogs. You might be thinking, can dogs detect bed bugs?

Read on to find out about if dogs can really detect bed bugs and whether a bed bug sniffing dog can help with your home’s infestation.

What Are Bed Bugs and Where Might They Be Lurking in Your Home?

The first thing you need to know before you can determine whether or not you might have bed bugs is to familiarize yourself with what bed bugs are. Bed bugs are small creatures that can take over and infest your home. These small critters feed off of blood from humans and animals, so you may wake up one morning with some bites.

Adult bed bugs can reproduce up to three times a year and are often between 5 and 7 mm in length. They are often a reddish-brown color, whereas their young is a clear color. Bed bugs can’t fly, but they can move very quickly and like to hide in difficult to reach cracks.

They live in, as the name suggests, bedding, mattresses, and bed frames. However, they might also be in other furniture such as sofas, curtains, clothing, carpets, or even in small cracks in the wall or furniture.

Luckily, bed bugs can be removed from your home by experts using a variety of treatments. However, the first these experts take is establishing where the bed bugs are. This can sometimes be done with specially trained dogs.

Can Dogs Detect Bed Bugs?

Are there dogs that can detect bed bugs? Yes, there are specialized canine units that are deployed to detect bed bug infestations.

For many years, humans have been training and using dogs to help them detect things, that’s because dogs have a great sense of smell. Some specially trained dogs can help police find drugs and bombs, while other dogs are trained to search for missing people. Dogs are also trained to help find mold and bed bugs in people’s houses.

Exterminators can spend hours looking for bed bugs because they are notorious for hiding in small cracks. A pest control professional may need to tear apart furniture and pull up floorboards in order to find all of the bed bugs in your home. Whereas, a specially trained bed bug sniffer dog will be able to smell the bed bugs out in a matter of minutes.

If you have your own dog, you might be wondering can all dogs detect bed bugs? The answer is yes, but only if they receive training from a young age (ideally between 8 and 12 months). So, while your three-year-old dog might have the ability to smell bed bugs in your home, they won’t know how to communicate it to you.

Which Dogs Are Best at Detecting Bed Bugs?

Certain dog breeds are renowned for their sniffing skills and have been used for centuries. For example, beagles and bloodhounds are known for having excellent senses of smell and for being loyal hunting dogs.

However, when it comes to sniffing out bed bugs, a variety of dog breeds can be used. Bed bug sniffer dogs may be beagles, bloodhounds, Jack Russells, border collies, or labradors. Sometimes smaller dog breeds are preferred when it comes to bed bug professionals because they’re better at getting into smaller locations and are less intimidating for residents.

How Do Dogs Sniff Out Bed Bugs?

Pest control experts use a variety of techniques to detect bed bugs, the more they use the better the detection. The human eye might not be as reliable as the scent ability of a dog, especially if the bed bugs are hiding.

Bed bug sniffer dogs are able to detect the critters by using their sense of smell. These dogs are specially trained and certified at sniffing out bed bugs. Training often involves up to one thousand hours of specialized training, so you can be sure they know what they’re doing.

If you think you have bed bugs, you should contact a qualified exterminator with bed bug detecting dogs. The exterminator will come into your home and use the dog to sniff out where any bed bugs are. The dog will be able to detect live bed bugs and also places where unhatched bed bugs might be.

Once the dog has detected the location (or locations) of the bed bugs, the exterminator will be able to create an effective treatment plan. The bed bug treatment plan may vary, depending on the size of the infestation and the size of your home or office.

Are you looking for a reliable canine to find bed bugs in your NYC home? Then get in touch with Doctor Sniffs, this NYC-based company conducts bed bug inspections in residences and commercial buildings using two expert bed bug sniffer dogs.

Free Yourself From Bed Bugs

The sooner you deal with a bed bug infestation the better and the very first step in dealing with the problem is finding where the horrible critters are. Use our can dogs detect bed bugs guide to find out whether sniffer dogs are right for detecting your infestation problems and free yourself from bed bugs once and for all.

Find out more about bed bugs and other pest control problems by reading some of our other articles.