Virus-sniffing dogs latest weapon in battle against COVID
SAN FRANCISCO -- COVID-sniffing dogs are becoming the next weapon in the war against the virus
It's 9 a.m. and Scarlett, a two-year-old yellow Labrador, is already working her little tail off.
"They are wonderful workers, and they just love their job," said Canine Early Alert dog trainer Liz Johnston.
Scarlett and her canine coworker Rizzo are part of a growing number of dogs across the globe who can detect COVID in humans simply by sniffing people's socks.
"We perspire and sweat through our socks so it's a very hot sample. So it has a lot of odor on it," Johnston explained.
Hired by the California Department of Public Health, Scarlett and Rizzo have been deployed to classrooms and nursing homes all over the Bay Area, essentially serving as walking COVID tests -- no need for swabs or even a laboratory. Instead these "labs" come to you.
"They're faster [and] they're environmentally friendly, so there's not a lot of trash from that," Johnston said. "Why wouldn't you like her running around you instead of someone taking something up your nose?"
A dog's sense of smell is estimated to be 10,000 to 100,000 times better than that of humans. Over the years, they've been used to sniff out everything from bombs to illegal drugs, and even cancer. But these days they're being trained to sniff out an elusive virus that has upended the world over the last three years.
"They can sniff out half a teaspoon of an odor in an Olympic size swimming pool without a problem," Johnston said.
They're trained with a wheel that has a canister attached at the end of each spoke. One of them is stuffed with a used sock that belonged to a person who recently tested positive for COVID. The moment Scarlett and Rizzo think they've detected the positive canister, they sit down.
With each spin of the wheel, Scarlett and Rizzo manage to spot the virus with lightning speed. Each time they manage to locate the positive canister, they get rewarded with a cookie.
Johnston said there is no danger for the dogs. The socks are stored for at least 24 hours before being stuffed into the canister, so there is no active virus being used.
Carol Edwards, the executive director of Early Alert Canines, said the company has been training the dogs almost every day to keep them up to date on all the latest strains.
She said not only are these dogs accurate, they can also tell if someone has COVID even before it shows up in other tests. The cost to train each dog is about $50,000 and can take up to a year.
But perhaps their biggest advantage is speed.
"You literally can do 300 people in 30 minutes with a dog you cannot do that with a 15-minute Binax [COVID] test,"
After a "ruff" day at work, Scarlett heads home, happy to use her nose to keep that swab out of yours.
