Meet Sunny, Ottawa’s first certified mould-detecting dog

What is a mould detection dog? How are they trained to find mould? What happens during an inspection? We answer those questions.

A new business in Ottawa is the first of its kind in the city, using trained dogs to detect mould.

Joanne Rodgers told CTV Morning Live she started Ottawa Mold Detecting Dogs with Sunny, the golden retriever, after finding mould in her own home.

“I had a change in careers, and I was looking for another career path and I fostered service dogs. I knew I wanted to get into the dog space, and we had mould in our house, so I kind of put two and two together,” she said.

Dogs have been used to sniff out a variety of things for years, from drugs to bombs. Rodgers says mould detecting dogs undergo the same kind of training as other sniffer dogs.

“When we went to get Sunny, she had spent months and months there already learning how to detect mould. She was there training with U.S. drug dogs, bomb dogs, other mould dogs, bedbug dogs, snake detection dogs, so all kinds of different dogs,” she said. “So, what they do is they get that imprint of that smell, and they train them on that. Sunny knows how to detect the common household moulds.”

According to her business’s website, a handler and dog will walk through a property, scanning each room. If the dog alerts to a specific spot, the handler will mark the area and recommend the next steps.

Ottawa Mold Detecting Dogs does not remove mould from homes but says it can connect people with mould remediation companies if mould is found.

Inspections are non-invasive and typically take between 30 and 90 minutes, depending on the size of the property, the business says. Dogs can pinpoint mould sources in walls, under floors or in other hard-to-reach areas.