Dog handler Heidi Wilson and her Russian spaniel River travel the province in search of bed bugs.
The pair works for a national pest control service, in a gig Wilson’s held for 15 years and River for seven, sniffing out the critters dead or alive to find peace of mind for clients.
There’s a false stigma associated with the bugs, says Wilson, a handler with Orkin Canada.
“I see the stress people go through because of the social stigma … which is silly, it’s just a bug. It’s associated with being unclean, which really has no basis,” Wilson said, noting they find them in hospitals and five-star hotels. “It just means one of them hitched a ride and set up shop and started a family in your house.”
What is true is that bed bugs are resilient and can live up to a year without sustenance. Old Island Pest Control, which works in Victoria through Campbell River, describes the small four- to five-millimetre bugs as reddish-brown with a distinguishably darker abdomen when blood is consumed. Over the course of their lifetime, females deposit between 200 to 500 eggs, usually in clusters of 10 to 50, within a period spanning six to 17 days.
If they’re there, dead or alive, River will find them.
Now is a particularly busy time of year for Orkin, with two handlers from the Burnaby-based team.
“A lot of people are vacationing this time of year and staying at hotels and getting bit by any number of insects … 90 per cent of the time we end up clearing the room, but they need that report to tell the guest in that room,” Wilson said.
Hotels, hostels and low-barrier housing are primary clients, but the duo works everywhere from medical facilities to apartments and, on occasion, a place River isn’t allowed in. They recently cleared worker residences, required to keep a remote mill working.
“Sometimes we get into some pretty sad places, where we can’t even enter because it’s severe hoarding,” Wilson said. “I have to be very careful bringing the dog into a situation like that.”
In those situations, she takes a peek herself. Frequently, the evidence is visible to the human eye, and that’s when the pair will start working on adjacent units.
“It’s very rewarding. My goal is when I go in and search whether there are bed bugs there or not, I need that customer or client to feel better by the time I leave. They need to be OK when I leave,” Wilson said.
The dog teams are a key tool in early bed bug detection, offering fast, effective and non-invasive inspections. Trained the same way any detection dog is, from bombs to drugs, a trainer starts with live bugs in vials, teaching the dogs to react to that scent.
The dog learns a passive response, in this case to sit, when they detect, and then they get “paid,” Wilson explained.
River frequently prefers food, though sometimes a toy is her reward.
While they’re working six days a week at the moment, River does enjoy her downtime. The pair starts early, and by 2 p.m. the spaniel is lapping up the sunshine in the yard while Wilson finishes the paperwork and answers emails.
They live together full time, and when River retires, she’ll stay with Wilson, which works out as they both love camping and hiking in their time off.
“It’s not a warehouse dog that you just put her away until the next call,” the handler said. “She’s my forever dog.”
