(Also concluded: dogs don’t particularly mind sniffing people’s armpits.) Researchers hope the first set of dogs could be deployed to key entry points, like airports, in the UK within the next six months. Not surprisingly, the team has had to figure out a way to safely catch the odor of the virus from patients and present it to the dogs. Mold sniffing dogs, like drug or bomb detection dogs, use their finely tuned olfactory sense to identify and locate their quarry – in this case, up to 18 species of toxic mold found in our homes and workplaces. It’s amazing actually.”. The coronavirus sniffer dogs Valo (L) and E.T. The UK government has given the team more than £500,000 (over $600,000) to put towards the research. In order to understand why dogs sniff so much, The Dodo reached out to Dr. Andrea Tu, medical director at Behavior Vets NYC. You can unsubscribe at any time. The findings of a recent study about dogs sniffing COVID-19 out of humans seem promising, but experts believe a lot of work still needs to be done to establish dogs… As PBS points out, "Experts have reported incredible true stories about the acuteness of dogs' sense of smell. Please try again later. Scientists have long known that people sick with certain diseases emit particular odors—different infections affect different parts of the body in different ways, often producing specific combinations of volatile compounds. He returns accompanied by a chocolate lab. His team wants to answer that question in further research, assuming they get more funding. 'It's a Game for Them.' The science behind a dog’s sense of smell That sometimes means getting creative; the U.K-based research team is currently collecting socks worn by COVID-19 positive patients and others worn by healthy participants to use in its trials. With their superior nose power, dogs have been trained to sniff out various diseases, including diabetes, malaria and tuberculosis.Now, new preliminary research led by the University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover, suggests that pups could also detect when people are infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. “She’s not as skilled as the detection dogs,” Lindsay says as the pup tries to lick his face. Trials are taking place in the UK to see whether specially trained airport sniffer dogs could detect Covid-19 in travelers, even before symptoms appear. You’re out for a walk with your dog and you both notice an expensive car parked on the street. “Like a recipe, if you get one ingredient wrong it doesn’t give you the right taste,” says Logan. Antti Aimo-Koivisto—Lehtikuva/AFP/Getty Images, Pelosi Says House Will Impeach Trump Unless Pence Acts, What Is the Insurrection Act And Does it Give Trump the Authority to Send Military Troops Into States? Atos runs from tire to tire, sniffing rows of used cars at Port Everglades before they're shipped to Latin America. “We’re not just doing the proof of concept work, we’re also working out actively how to deploy this and scale it up as well, because we want to hit the ground running once we’ve gotten our results,” says James Logan, the head of LSHTM’s Department of Disease Control and the project lead on the U.K. study. "We are incredibly proud that a dog's nose could once again save many lives. Guest hopes her group will be ready to publish results based on this next research phase in the next six to eight weeks. Another unknown: how far a COVID-19 infection needs to progress before a dog can pick up the scent. What he is communicating can vary according to the circumstances, so it is worth paying attention in order to be a supportive partner. For those who do not have a lot of time, to tire your dog out at home is an option. Dogs have shown a remarkable ability to pick up on those airborne chemicals, detecting when people are infected with malaria, infectious bacteria, and even certain types of cancer. Researchers are “working hard to find out just what it is the dogs are sniffing” in infected patients, says Goodavage. But antigen tests require often uncomfortable nasal swabs, and take about 15 minutes to return results. The mental enrichment your dog gets on a slow walk with lots of time for sniffing is much greater than they would get on a fast-paced, walk to heel. Just whip out your wand and let your dog pop bubbles until she’s tired! "The dogs will only be permitted to be touched by the handler, which therefore means there will be very low risk of spread of the virus from the dog to their handler or to the people they live with.". Dogs are being enlisted in the fight against the novel coronavirus. "The dogs were also trained to ignore distractions, such as other live animals, when working in an outdoor environment and worked on building up their stamina so they do not tire easily in the field."