Sniffing out mold with a specially trained dog

Dogs have been used to sniff out all kinds of things like drugs and bombs. Dogs have even been used to find earthquake survivors in piles of rubble. <br/><br/>The News on 6's Rick Wells has found

Wednesday, June 23rd 2004, 5:44 pm

By: News On 6

Dogs have been used to sniff out all kinds of things like drugs and bombs. Dogs have even been used to find earthquake survivors in piles of rubble.

The News on 6's Rick Wells has found a dog trained to sniff out a hard to find environmental health hazard, mold.

Bailey is a one year old terrier mix and she's Oklahoma's only certified mold sniffing dog. We've all heard about bomb and drug sniffing dogs, Bailey's nose knows mold. She has a daily training session, some of the containers have regular household items, others have mold.

Kendal Coats: "We hide different types of mold; this is an old hamburger bun." Anyway Bailey's job is to find it, when she does she stops sits and looks at it. When she's right, which is most of the time, she gets something to eat. So Bailey works for food.

Mold has been linked to lots of health problems for children and people with respiratory problems, for them finding and removing mold is critical. Traditionally it's detected with a kit and some expensive lab tests. Bailey's nose can pinpoint the problem areas even faster.

Kendal Coats: "So I'll take a sample in that area, so it cuts down on the number of samples we have to take in someone's home." It also could reduce the size of a mold remediation project.

Kendal Coats is an environmental scientist; Bailey I guess you could say is his new partner. She was orphaned; the Coats' adopted her and sent her to Florida for 1,000 hours of training, learning to sniff out mold. She got a diploma. So she's our first sheepskin tote 'en terrier, with a very talented nose.

Most traditional air testing is inconclusive. K9 Environmental Services claims using the dog can increase the accuracy of a mold test up to 90%.

If you'd like more information call them at 866-243-6737.