I cannot emphasize enough the importance of prepping a room before our beagles come in and perform their sniffing inspection.
Dog sniff out bed bugs, so they use their nose close to every item, furniture pieces, floor, carpet etc. to inhale scent and discriminate the smell of bed bugs.
Although we train regularly with food on the ground to train our dogs not to pick it up, it is in their blood to sniff it out. If the food item happens to be small enough – like a small pill – or if it is moldy, for instance, then it can cause serious harm to our dogs just through the process of inhaling.
Last week, after conducting a search of someone’s room that was rather unkempt, messy with clothes strewn all over the place and who knows what else on the floor, one of my beagles, Malamar, fell seriously ill within a few minutes from concluding the inspection.
She threw up non-stop for a good 30 minutes – it was not a pretty sight and it certainly put me in a panick. Needless to say, a quick emergency visit to the vet followed.
Often enough, the dogs will inhale rather than eat something that instantly causes them to snort incessantly to dislodge it from their nasal, olfactory tunnels. And that is very disheartening and frightening to witness.
As part of my inspection process, I try to make it a point to do a cursory visual inspection of the areas before I bring my dogs in, so as to tell the residents to pick up any medicine, food, or sharp item that they might have left on the floor.
Or I may instead detect Diatomaceous Earth (DE) or any similar powder they might have doused the floor and furnishings with. DE is actually made of very tiny, crystallized fossils and thus can seriously harm the nose of a dog and its ability to discriminate odors.
Malamar is doing much better now but it made me realize that my beagles’ health can be jeopardized in a blink of an eye during a K-9 inspection.
