"Pest industry moves to certify bedbug-sniffing dog programs" by Lena H. Sun, Washington Post / June 19, 2011
WASHINGTON —The smell, described by some entomologists as sweet and sickly, is something dogs can be taught to sniff out, much the same way they can be trained to detect explosives and narcotics....
The increase “has been the most dramatic of any canine scent detection since bomb dogs after 9/11,’’ said David Latimer, whose family runs a canine scent detection business called Forensic and Scientific Investigations in Alabama, and who is also the police chief and fire chief of Harpersville, Ala., population about 3,000....
Not that he would have a conflict of intere$t there.
“Most of the dogs we adopt would not make very good pets,’’ Latimer said. “Periodically, someone calls us up and says their dog is nuts, that it can’t seem to contain itself. It’s like the dog needs a dose of Ritalin when really all it needs is a job.’’
Related: Working Class Man
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The recent nationwide resurgence in bedbugs has led an increasing number of pest control companies to use trained dogs to help locate the bugs and their eggs, Missy Henriksen, vice president of public affairs for the pest management group, said....
The specialists reported the highest incidences in private residences, followed by hotels and motels, college dorms, various modes of transportation, laundry facilities, and movie theaters.
Specialists suspect that the resurgence is related to resistance to available pesticides, greater mobility and travel, and lack of knowledge about pests that were virtually eradicated in the 1940s and 1950s.
They can live for months without a meal, hidden in mattress seams, baseboard cracks, and in clutter around beds. They travel easily, hitchhiking from person to person, city to city.
Experts recommend sealing mattresses and box springs in plastic covers, and in hotels checking the wall behind the headboard for signs of infestation: black specks (fecal matter), molten sheddings (like pencil shavings), or the bugs.
You know, the Boston Globe is beginning to become a real pest.
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I think I'd rather smell ass.
Related:
"Bedbugs are not known to spread disease, and they are generally not viewed as a major public health threat. But...."
Yeah, right; anything and anywhere except release from a government lab.
Also see: And Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
Now I can't.
"Micky Ward hospitalized after dog bites finger" by Travis Andersen, Globe Staff / June 19, 2011
Legendary boxer Micky Ward has been hospitalized since Wednesday, when he suffered a finger injury while trying to separate his dog from another one, his agent said.
Ward, a Lowell native who was the subject of the acclaimed film “The Fighter,’’ is scheduled to be released from the hospital today, according to agent Nick Cordasco....
That did it.
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