It’s been over one year since we made the decision to purchase a bed bug detecting dog, and as our re-certification testing has been completed, we’re happy to say our team passed with flying colors!
The NESDCA certification process insures that our bed bug team’s ability to find bed bugs has been tested and verified by an independent organization, and that the highest standards for Entomology Scent Detection Canines are being followed.
The process our K9 team had to follow in order to pass our certification is detailed, and here’s a link to anyone interested in knowing exactly what a K9 team has to do to achieve certification:
In the year since we purchased our bed bug dog, our team became one of the most experienced K9’s in the industry for a variety of reasons:
> Our independent bed bug inspection company status: It became clear that by last summer, public opinion had clearly turned in favor in hiring a bed bug inspection company that had no vested-interest in the outcome of the bed bug search, as opposed to a pest control-owned K9 that had a vested-interest in the outcome. It’s not to say that a dog owned by a pest control company is not qualified to perform an accurate bed bug search. But, with the price of remediation being what it is in the tri-state area, consumers realized it was in their best interest to use independent search companies.
> The training pedigree: our dog trained at a company (J&K Canine Academy) that exceeds every standard for Entomology Scent Detection Canines training that exists. The 97.5% statistic used to verify the accuracy of bed bug dogs was achieved by one company only: J&K Canine Academy. No other company in the country has ever had its dogs tested by a 3rd party accredited university (as the University of Florida did with J&K Canine’s dogs), and the entire industry is borrowing a statistic that only J&K Canine has achieved.
> National Entomology Scent Detection Canine Association – Simply put, NESDCA assures that the highest standards for Entomology Scent Detection Canines are being met at all times.
> Our ability to provide visual inspections – Most independent bed bug inspection companies have no visual inspection experience to fall back on. In our case, we’d performed over 2000 individual visual inspections in the 3 years before purchasing a K9 to help us with bed bug detection. While there’s no question that a dog is more qualified to find bed bugs than a human being is, the public has come to expect that a visual inspection accompany the findings of a dog, and we agree. We continue to provide a visual inspection at every location we service.
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