Air Vent Cover

Have dog, will travel to catch bedbugs

Rhys Perkins is all business as he goes through his daily training routine with his 1½-year-old golden retriever, Riggs. But don't try telling Riggs this is work - he seems to be having the time of his life.

Riggs is a bedbug detection dog, and his big, furry schnoz is a finely tuned instrument. To keep it that way, Perkins has set up a small training facility in his garage.

It consists of two sections of mock wall, one with a half-dozen PVC pipes jutting out, and the other fitted with standard air vents, electrical outlets and switchplates. Perkins has a vial of live bedbugs - carefully sealed with scent-permeable mesh - which he hides in various spots in the training walls. He also has some dead bugs, which give off a different scent.

Riggs moves rapidly and efficiently from hiding spot to hiding spot, giving each a quick sniff. Suddenly, he slaps a big paw against an air vent cover, spins and sits at his master's feet with an expectant look on his fuzzy face.

Once again, he's found the live bugs.

"Good boy!" says Perkins, producing a rubber ball on a short length of nylon rope. Riggs could not be more excited as he grabs the ball in his teeth and his master showers him with praise. "Good boy! Who's a good boy? Good boy!"

Perkins graduated from Oregon State University last spring with a biology degree and high hopes for a career in fish and wildlife science, but after a temporary gig doing spotted owl surveys, he came face to face with the grim reality of the Great Recession.

"I applied for over 100 jobs in the first few months after the season ended," Perkins said. "It was just a rough time to find jobs, for a lot of people."

So Perkins did what so many other enterprising Americans have done: He started a business.

In April, Perkins and his stepfather, Dave Foster, launched Peace of Mind K9 Bed Bug Detection. Foster handles the marketing and bookkeeping, while Perkins handles Riggs.

Their biggest investment so far has been $9,000 for Riggs, who underwent two months of intensive instruction at the Falco K9 Academy in Brea, Calif., which also trains police dogs. The price included training for Perkins, who worked with Riggs for 10 days before the two passed their certification test.

Using dogs to sniff out bedbugs is a fairly new field, but one that may be poised to take off as the blood-sucking parasites - once nearly wiped out by the now-banned pesticide DDT - rear their ugly little heads again in hotels, apartment houses and private homes across the country, including the Northwest.

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