M2 Bed Bug has become a trusted partner for pest control companies in Central Ohio.

LANCASTER, Ohio — M2 Bed Bug owner Mike Posey has dedicated the last 10 years of his career investing in bed bug-detecting dogs to help sniff “out of sight” bed bug infestations.  

Posey invested in his first bed bug dog when he moved back to Ohio from New York and started his own bed bug-detecting dog business.

“It was an expensive adventure right in the beginning because the dogs are $10,000 [each],” Posey said. “I was able to come up with it and my first dog [came] from Iron Heart Performance Dogs in Kansas. His name was Turbo and he worked for 10 years. He got better and better with time.”

Business was growing rapidly for M2 Bed Bugs before the COVID-19 pandemic, Posey said.

“In the beginning of 2020, we were halfway through 2019 [in revenue],” he said. “We made $100,000 in two months.”

Posey said the business “hung in there enough to keep the doors open” during the rough months of the pandemic.

He said now their days are full and focused on offering the best bed bug dog protection possible.

How does Posey know which type of dog are the “best” bed bug dogs to invest in? While he gets asked this question a lot, he said, “the best bed bug dog is the one that finds them.”

“We prefer to use smaller dogs because they’re a lot easier to feed, carry around with us and they’re not intimidating,” Posey added.

When inspecting business and commercial environments for bed bugs, Posey said people “are never going to find [bed bugs]” just with their eyes.

“They may find one or two on a chair, but that's not what they're looking for,” he said. “You're looking for the one that's hiding in the filing cabinet, computer tower, keyboard or the cubicle wall because a human will have to tear all that out.”

Bed bug-detecting dogs have more than a 90 percent accuracy rate, according to a recent study by the University of Florida (UF) entomology department. Posey said, citing a PCT Bed Bug Supplement article, this is compared to humans who have 20 to 30 percent accuracy, depending on how experienced a technician is finding bed bugs visually.

“Dogs are sniffing about 120 times a minute compared to people,” he said. “I don't care that there's 1,000 [bed bugs] in a couch. I want to know if they're down that hallway, or in the floorboards. I don’t want to just guess … I want to know.”

Pest control companies in Fairfield County will contract with M2 Bed Bugs, relationships that have been mutually beneficial.

“Some of the companies that don't have dogs use [our services] because their hands are kind of up in the air,” in frustration over not finding bed bugs, said Posey. “I want them to be successful too because in the end, we're all in it to kill bed bugs and to get rid of them.”

Bed bug-detecting dogs are trained using target odors like live bed bugs and viable eggs that are separated from nontarget odors like general household pests, according to a the UF study.

“A dog can go by, sniff it and that odors coming out and they pick up on the odor and it's there,” Posey said. “There's a change of behavior when the dogs are on a bug with a head whip. Boom, there’s [the bed bugs] and then we'll bring another dog in to verify it.”

Posey started training his own bed bug dogs in 2019, buying dogs from animal shelters or ones that lived in homes before working for the company. He said it’s all about choosing the right age and size of dog.

“I want a dog that’s a year a half to two years old with the maturity,” he said. “It’s choosing the right dog and being consistent training it every day. It’s not hours and hours, it’s 15 to 20 minutes every day.”

Training bed bug dogs is a 365-day commitment.

“It’s a dedication and you have to be 100% into it,” Posey said. “It’s not a lot of standing around because we want that dog moving the whole time. That’s how you get them in shape.”

Posey said when they are trained and ready to take on inspections, dogs can only be worked for no more than three hours a day.

“By that point, [the dogs] are done. That nose has stopped working,” he said.

Posey said some pest control companies are skeptical of using bed bug-detecting dogs because they believe “dogs just don’t work.”

“Humans can find bed bugs, but we aren't very effective,” he said. “You have some people that just flat out don't believe [bed bug dogs] work or it is a scam. Those are the people I like to turn onto the work.”

While false positives do happen, Posey said there’s normally some form of treatment already on the area that removes the target odor.

“Usually there was something already done that we don’t know about like rubbing alcohol or the area was sprayed,” he said. “There’s a lot of checks and balances that we do with ourselves. [It’s] very rare that I have dogs alert and there's nothing there.”

The UF study reported a common false positive rate of 10 percent when working with bed bug-detection dogs.

Another common “myth” with bed bug dogs is the owners being able to “control” the behavior of the dog.

“When people say that, to me, that's telling them that they don't think I have any integrity in what I do,” Posey said.

Posey believes more pest control companies will add bed bug dog services to “keep up with the times.”