Dogs Smelling The Virus

May 29, 2020

We all know dogs have a great sense of smell, but can they sniff out the COVID-19 virus in people?

Everything has an order to it, to dog it’s not that big of a deal but to us it is. Dog’s sense of smell is so above and beyond what we we’re able to smell and sense things that we just had no idea is there,” said Jack Grigg.

Jack and Lori Grigg the owner’s of Paradise dog training specialize in training certified service dogs to do unique tasks, such as search for bed bugs and tell diabetic owner’s when their blood sugar is too low.

They believe they can train a dog to detect COVID-19.

“We have been doing a little bit of research and Penn State has a program where they are training COVID-19 dogs and there is also a program in Britian,” said Lori. “We thought we’d get on the bandwagon and train a dog to detect the COVID-19 virus in asymptomatic people.”

They would train the dogs by having them smell a clothing item that someone who has COVID-19 was wearing. The dog will pick-up on the smell, and be able to detect the virus in a human with positive dog-treat reinforcement training.

In order to train the dogs, the Grigg’s will need some help.

“What we need is people who have the COVID-19 virus. That will give a pair of white cotton gloves or white nylon socks, wear them for 10 minutes and then we get the samples. We ask them to put them in a baggie and seal the baggie up and they won’t get more contamination and then we’ll train the dogs off the socks and the gloves,” said Lori.

The dogs won’t be exposed to the virus because they will be sniffing the items through the sealed baggies.