A health official with a background in using dogs to detect different medical conditions has found a way to use our four-legged friends to detect COVID-19. Vancouver Coastal Health has trained a team of dogs, named Canine for Care, to signal the scent of the virus. The dog team already knew how to identify the bacteria Clostridium difficile.
Health authorities in B.C. said this was “no small feat” as the total process took roughly 6-months to figure out. Even just choosing the right dogs was a task, the two Labrador retrievers and English springer spaniel required a global approach. The VCH team said they communicated with people around the world to find dogs with specific genetics and potential.
Canine scent detection specialist Teresa Zuberg said “Every dog can sniff, but not every dog can work,” in a news release issued Thursday. When the dogs were chosen, Micro, Yoki, and Finn, and the team had to figure out how to get access to COVID-19 samples. They also had to think of a safe way to train the pups with keeping them safe and their handlers.
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