In a place called "Freetown"
FREETOWN, Mass. — Since last fall, Huntah the dog, a not-quite-two-year-old black lab, has been sweeping classrooms and common areas at Freetown Elementary School nearly every week in search of … COVID.
She sniffs around a first-grade classroom while the kids work at their various math stations. She smells the garbage can, desks, students' book bags and other surfaces.
"So, if the dog indicates on COVID," explains Capt. Paul Douglas, who handles Huntah and runs the K-9 Unit of Bristol County Sheriff's Office, "the dog will sit."
[you might wonder how the dogs were trained to do this.]
To do that, they worked with a local hospital to gather discarded masks from patients who'd tested positive. Turns out that the masks emitted a particular COVID odor. "All of the immune responses that your body turns on in order to fight off this virus combines to make a unique scent that people breathe out [and is] captured on the masks," says Mills.
To protect the dogs from COVID during training, the researchers "UV-irradiated them to inactivate the virus, and then we used those masks to train the dogs," says Mills.ills, decided they would try to teach dogs how to sniff out the virus.
To do that, they worked with a local hospital to gather discarded masks from patients who'd tested positive. Turns out that the masks emitted a particular COVID odor. "All of the immune responses that your body turns on in order to fight off this virus combines to make a unique scent that people breathe out [and is] captured on the masks," says Mills.
To protect the dogs from COVID during training, the researchers "UV-irradiated them to inactivate the virus, and then we used those masks to train the dogs," says Mills.
And even if dogs were to smell COVID in a mask or on a surface that hadn't been irradiated, the risk to the animals is very low, says Mills. "We've checked with several different veterinarians, including one from the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]. Even if the dog gets [COVID], it's a very mild cold. It doesn't affect them as it does us."
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/06/16/1104931711/dogs-trained-to-sniff-out-covid-in-schools-are-getting-a-lot-of-love-for-their-e