A Valencia County man sent his dog to a special school to learn how to sniff out a critter irritating to people across the nation.
A border collie, Sienna, is now the only dog in New Mexico trained to track down bed bugs.
The dog’s owner, Robert Duck, trains Sienna every day by hiding live bed bugs in tiny vials around the house.
Sienna was trained at a school in Florida about a year ago and has since sniffed out bed bugs for the City of Albuquerque and the Department of Health.
“All over the U.S. been growing exponentially. It’s already here, but it’s a growing problem,†says Duck.
Sienna is able to find bed bugs in a single room in about a minute with 95 percent accuracy, says Duck.
That’s compared to a pest control service that could take up to two hours with only a 30 percent success rate, he adds.