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Using
Dogs to Sniff Out Mold in Homes
Abridged
Version
From a news story by
CNN San Francisco Reporter James Hattori
May 2003
"Are you ready to go to work?" a woman asks her dog.
Sydney wags her tail. Then she starts sniffing around inside the house.
Sydney is hunting for mold. When she sits down, that means she smells
mold nearby. Usually mold is found within three or four feet. A boy
who lives in this house gets epileptic seizures. It could be from mold.
His mother wanted to find the mold. She tried other ways to find it,
but they didn?t work. She said she trusted the dog more than the other
ways.
Sydney is very special. Only about ten animals in the US can do this.
She spent hundreds of hours with a police dog trainer in Florida to
learn how.
When workers checked, they found mold near where Sydney sat. Nobody
thought to look for mold there before. Now it can be cleaned out and
the boy will feel much better. In the US, people have used dogs to find
drugs and bombs for a long time, but dogs that find mold are something
new.
People in Europe have used
mold-sniffing dogs for many years. Dogs are cheaper to use and can pinpoint
exactly where the mold is. They can also do it quickly for less than
$500. Other methods can cost thousands of dollars and take many weeks.
People who breathe toxic mold might have trouble sleeping or suffer
from asthma, pain, or other problems. Experts still aren?t sure about
all the sickness and suffering toxic molds can cause.
But now dogs can help people get well by showing them where mold is
growing in their houses so they can get rid of it.
For additional information, look at these Web sites:
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