Who’s Bella, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. She’s a 4-year-old Labrador retriever. (We saw in yesterday’s post, btw, that Bella comes in at number 2 on the list of most popular names for female dogs.)
So what bugs Bella? Bugs do. Bedbugs, to be precise. Her specially-trained skill is sniffing them out, as other dogs do with drugs or cadavers.
Bella listens to instructions from her trainer
Turns out bedbugs have made a comeback in the U.S. in the last 10 years. Bella and her trainer, Gary Broberg, hire themselves out to pest control companies around the country that want to give their customers extra peace of mind.
Using a dog provides extra certainty, because bedbugs give off a pheromone that dogs can scent. So even if they’re hiding in the cracks of a house after pest treatments, Bella can find them.
Bella’s not the only bug-sniffing sleuth around. There’s also Tia, a 2-year-old black Labrador in Clive, Iowa, and Sky, a chocolate Labrador who was rescued from a shelter in Kansas City.
Sky
It’s good to know these canine detectives are on the job!
