They’re a tiny, blood-sucking souvenir no one wants to bring home from vacation: bed bugs.
They can live in furniture, mattresses and electrical outlets, hiding away in homes and hotels, undetected until it’s too late. Bed bugs emerge from their hiding spots at night to feed, and leave tiny red bites on the skin of their victims.
But if you’re worried you might have an infestation on your hands, you could always hire a pair of adorable detectives to search your space.
Turbo, a four-year-old Belgian Malinois, and Mambo, a German Shepherd, both have a nose for bed bugs. And if you contact Teena Wilson, her four-legged friends can come track down the six-legged nuisances.
“Every city and every town has had an experience with bed bugs,” says Wilson, who owns Night Night Sleep Tight: K9 Detection Services in Calgary. “Everybody gets creeped out with them.”
Wilson first trains the dogs to find bed bug-scented strips before moving on to the real thing.
“The scent strip itself is saturated with a solution that’s made of bed bugs,” she says. “Bed bugs feed on only one thing, which is blood, and so a dog can smell blood.”
Though Wilson isn’t an exterminator, her service can provide early detection – because once a place is infested, removal can cost thousands of dollars.
It’s one way to make sure a relaxing vacation doesn’t become an extended hassle.
“I go over people's luggage quite a bit now,” Wilson says. “The dogs bring extreme peace of mind.
With a report from CTV National News Alberta Bureau Chief Janet Dirks
