Using dogs to detect bedbugs is an effective way to combat the pests because with early detection, the infected rooms in a dorm or a hotel can be targeted and the bugs eliminated.

One Wilmington entrepreneur has taken the bedbug scare and turned it into a business.

To the untrained eye, Jonas Wilkey’s dog Janelle looks like a common beagle mix, but it is her nose that sets her apart from the common canine.

Janelle has been specifically trained to detect bedbugs in hotels and residences.

Bedbugs are small, parasitic insects that feed on human blood and grow to around 4-5 millimeters.

The pests were all but eradicated in the 1940s through the use of the now banned insecticide DDT. Recently stories of bedbugs infesting hotels have been popping up in almost every major newspaper and causing headaches for hotel operators.

According to Wilkey, bedbugs are hard to kill and pesticides often fail to eliminate them completely. Bedbug infestations can cause public relations problems and in some cases litigation against hotels.

According to Wilkey, one of the most effective ways to combat Bedbugs is with high heat.

Every living organism has a thermal death point, and bedbugs’ death point is at about 115 degrees.

“Heating the rooms up to 130 is overkill but assures or mostly assures that  all of the bugs have been eradicated,” Wilkey said. “It takes about an hour to get the room up to temperature if everything is sealed properly and the heat is usually left  somewhere around 130 for 3 to 4 hours to kill the live bugs and eggs," said Wilkey.

This process is expensive and time consuming so, by using dogs hotel operators can determine which rooms need to be treated.

Wilkey and his dog can inspect an entire hotel, room by room, and detect any traces of the insects. “It is a proactive, not a reactive, step for hotels to use this service. She can detect live nymphs (immature bedbugs), dead bugs, eggs and feces,” Wilkey said.  “You can also go into a home to help home owners determine if they have an infestation or it is another issue.”

Wilkey got into the bedbug detection business after he ran into a high school friend, Micah Nix, while Nix was speaking at a pest control conference at the Wilmington Hilton Riverside. Nix had started using dogs for detecting bedbugs and the idea interested Wilkey.

“I was in the insurance world and hated my job,” Wilkey said. After doing some investigating, Wilkey found a trainer in Alabama who trained detection dogs and purchased Janelle.

The trainer, David Latimer, is chief of police of Harpersville, Ala.,  and trains dogs for drug, bomb, mold and insect detection. 
Wilkey’s dog, Janelle, was selected from a local shelter, after Latimer determined she would be a good fit for detection. According to Wilkey, Janelle is a food reward detection dog and was selected because of how hard the dog will work to get a treat.

“Janelle had her snout up under the cage to get the food,” Wilkey said. After Janelle was trained by Latimer, Wilkey was also trained to work with detection dogs.

“I am certified through WDDO, (World Dog Detection Organization) as a canine handler team. I did not know I was biting off as much as I was, training is constant. She has to be willing to work.  If you go into a hotel and need to inspect 50 rooms, that is a lot of work for both of us,” Wilkey said.

Since March, when Wilkey and Janelle started to inspect hotels, the pair has inspected more than 600 hotel rooms while working for Nix’s bedbugfinders.com. Wilkey explained that Janelle has to be trained daily.  “She is a food reward dog, so we hide bedbugs every day to feed her,” Wilkey said.

“She does not get her dinner unless she finds them, but she finds them twice a day.”