Bed bug detection dog goes to work at UK hotels

Looking for bed bugs

The first ever bed bug detection dog has started operating in a number of UK hotels, reports CaterSearch.com.

Lola, a 16-month-old Jack Russell, trained by the National Entomology Scent Detection Canine Association, is being sent into some UK hotels to detect the odor of eggs laid by bed bugs in order to reduce the number of litigation cases brought on by unhappy hotel customers who have been bitten by the bed bugs, including one American couple who raised a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in London after they received hundreds of bites during their stay.

Trained in the USA, Lola has been brought in on behalf of Trust K9, a company based in London, and can accurately search a hotel room for bed bugs in just 2 or 3 minutes.

Claiming a 98% accuracy rate in detecting the odor of live bed bugs and viable eggs, they outshine their human counterparts, who can only claim a 17-30% success rate at detecting the bugs, and who can take 20-30 minutes to examine a hotel room.

Lola is also in operation at residential properties, transportation, cruise liners and aircraft.