Guest guest Posted September 27, 2004 Report Share Posted September 27, 2004 I have not had any experience with these dogs yet, but I found an ad claiming to have “Southern California’s first and only certified mold detecting dog” … Check www.molddoctorinfo.com Jasson Walke Mold Tech Services, Inc www.moldtechservices.com jasson@... Mold Sniffing Dogs Does anyone have any direct experience with mold sniffing dogs? In addition to being a safety and health professional, I raise Labrador Retrievers. I have been curious about the effectiveness of using dogs to detect mold. I'm wondering if there are certain mold species that are used for detection and if they can differentiate between asp/penn types of spores. Thanks in advance for any input. Kerry T. Cooley, CIH Executive Director EHSNet.net Home Page: http://www.ehsnet.net Forum: http://www.ehsnet.net//ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?Cat= Enviornmental, Health and Safety Discussion Forum FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 28, 2004 Report Share Posted September 28, 2004 I identified a spore plume in Dr Marinkovich's reception room using my perception and pointed right at the wall it was coming from. Dr Marinkovich was amazed and said he had never seen anyone so finely attuned to mold identification. Does that mean I'm certified? Or just " certifiable " . - the Stachysterian (I don't roll over and I'm probably too old to learn any new tricks though) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 29, 2004 Report Share Posted September 29, 2004 When utilizing instruments for air quality detection work, we must be aware of interfering products. In this case, the mouse would be an interfering product for canine mould detection. Nevertheless, the dead mouse alert would provide for useful information. Regards, Anne ______________________________________________________ Anne O'Donnell, Msc., C.I.H. OHHS Consultants / HSST Conseils Inc. 3465, ave. Ridgewood bureau 102 Montréal (Québec) H3V 1B4 Tél.: Fax.: courriel: hsst@... From: dschworn Sent: 28 septembre, 2004 21:30 To: Subject: RE: Mold Sniffing Dogs Sorry, but the same dog would pick up the scent of a rotting mouse in a wall cavity just as fast. Would be a great CSI epsiode but a sad gimmick that really hurts the science involved in a valid mold assessment. Dont blame the dog just the master (you agree ??). Jasson Walke wrote: I have not had any experience with these dogs yet, but I found an ad claiming to have Southern Californias first and only certified mold detecting dog Check www.molddoctorinfo.com .. Jasson Walke Mold Tech Services, Inc www.moldtechservices.com (310) 644-0311 jasson@... Mold Sniffing Dogs Does anyone have any direct experience with mold sniffing dogs? In addition to being a safety and health professional, I raise Labrador Retrievers. I have been curious about the effectiveness of using dogs to detect mold. I'm wondering if there are certain mold species that are used for detection and if they can differentiate between asp/penn types of spores. Thanks in advance for any input. Kerry T. Cooley, CIH Executive Director EHSNet.net Home Page: http://www.ehsnet.net Forum: http://www.ehsnet.net//ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?Cat= Enviornmental, Health and Safety Discussion Forum FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Do you Yahoo!? vote.yahoo.com - Register online to vote today! FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 30, 2004 Report Share Posted September 30, 2004 I have some personal experience with mold sniffing dogs. I had been hearing about them being used in Europe since the early 90's. About three years ago I started researching training a dog for mold sniffing. (By the way I was an Animal Health Technician between 1973 and 1984 so I had some back ground in animals and training). About two years ago I convinced my wife to let me use the family laborador and teach her to sniff mold. We made a deal, I would not place our dog in danger and if it appeared that the training was going to make our dog less of a pet - then we would stop. I located two wonderful women that trained dogs to search for cadavers. (they spent several weeks at the World Trade Center after 9/11). My wife and I spent several sessions watching them train for cadaver work and then started working our dog. We worked with them for several weeks then continued on our own. First there are two general ways the dogs are trained to " alert " - Passive and Aggressive. Aggressive finds are frequently used for drugs. Passive alerts are always used for cadavers and bombs (People tend to get upset if the dog starts digging aggressively at a dead body, and they can only be used one time to find a real bomb). Mold dogs have been trained using both passive and aggressive methods, but I personally would not consider the aggressive method. The aggressive method generally requires the dog be hyped up and it digs at the suspect material. Hyped up dogs don't make good pets, and they can be hard on building materials and any furnishings that get in the way. There have also been reports of European dogs that were trained to use aggressive finds getting sick when they started digging in the mold before they could be pulled off.. Our dog was trained using the passive find (her passive alert is to snif, sit and look at me. If I tell her to show me she will then take her paw and touch the area where the mold is. If I can see the mold I don't ask her to show me because I don't want it disturbed. It took about six months of training several times a day to get her to a point where I had confidence she would have an acceptable level of accuracy. We knew we would have to train her to be discriminating - what not to find as well as what to find. Our dog is still a dog and she will show interest in the dead mouse, the chicken leg and a bunch of other smells - but she doesn't alert on them -because she has been trained not to. Along the way there were some surprises. Our dog alerted on a closed bottle of vodka in a cabinet, so she had to be taught that alcohol wasn't going to get her a reward or praise when she alerted on it. (no jokes please) We also had to teach her that store bought mushrooms were also a negative. After six months of training I started taking her with me on some " real jobs " . What I found was that the dog is not very helpful in a mold infested building. If there is a lot of mold, you need to use the traditional methods to get the mold out otherwise the dogs olfactory sense is overloaded - there is just too much for the dog to be able to descern where the mold growth is located. Another issue is how much mold needs to be present for the dog to alert. With our dog I found sheet rock soaked for three days did not warrent an alert, but on day four it did. This could result in a recommendation to open up a wall to confirm the presence of mold and none would be visible, although surface testing would demonstrate several thousand cfu's per square inch more than typical background. The dog is only for areas of actual growth (Condition 1) and can't determine if a release of spores has occurred into other parts of the building. For Condition 2 settled spores I perfer surface sampling (dust or swabs). The dog can't determine the type of mold. Penicillium in blue cheese will get the same alert response as Penicillium on sheet rock, so professional judgement is important. Other considerations: The dog needs to be trained on a daily baisis and constantly tested to be sure the training is still valid. This should be recorded in a daily log.that is available for inspection on request. There are no independent standards or certifications for mold dogs. I know that dogs are being advertised as being certified, but this is self certification by the organization that trained them. Typically the handlers are not experienced mold investigators so this has created many problems giving the dogs a bad name because the handler doesn't understand mold. (I am of the opinion the dog is never at fault, only the handler). In the last six months I have probably used her three times to sniff for mold. All three were cases where I couldn't determine where residual mold was after a remediation. Since I don't use her frequently I don't keep up the daily training, but I can get her up to par in less than two weeks of remedial work, but I question whether most handlers could do this. There are some major differences between handling a dog and training a dog. The experience of training our dog resulted in great rewards. Our dog is much better behaved and bonded to us because of the training, but I find 95% of the time I can use my expertise in mold to determine what is required. The dog is a tool, and like any tool it can be used well or poorly. Banta, CAIH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 1, 2004 Report Share Posted October 1, 2004 Kerry: You may find the following paper informative if you have not seen it yet. You can get the full paper if you search on the internet. Kung'u, PhD. Mycologist. How to Find Hidden Microbial Growth with a Mold Dog ABSTRACT: Microorganisms grow frequently in hidden places, e.g., behind wall linings, in floors, or behind installations. They are often not visible from the outside. Often, health complaints occur even after the moisture damage has dried, sometimes even only then. In these cases, moisture measurements are not suitable to localize the microorganisms. Besides spores and other particles, microorganisms emit gaseous substances (microbial volatile organic compounds = MVOC). The MVOCs are still emitted from the contaminated material long after the microorganism has died. Dogs can be trained to search for microbial odor and to detect the source. This is a very successful method for locating hidden microbial damage. The mold dog, however, must be correctly trained, led, and interpreted. In some cases, it is the only applicable method to find spots damaged by microorganisms. During a building inspection, the dog is accompanied by a professional dog handler and an experienced consultant. At places where the dog marks a microbial odor, samples must be taken for microbiogical analysis. By this well directed procedure, destruction of material is unneccessary and additional costs can be avoided. Authors:Wolfgang Lorenz, Dr.-Ing., Diederich Citation:Indoor Air Quality 2001 Moisture, Microbes, and Heath Effects: Indoor Air Quality and Moisture in Buildings Conference Papers Keywords:November, California, 2001 --- EHSNet wrote: > MessageDoes anyone have any direct experience with > mold sniffing dogs? In > addition to being a safety and health professional, > I raise Labrador > Retrievers. I have been curious about the > effectiveness of using dogs to > detect mold. I'm wondering if there are certain > mold species that are used > for detection and if they can differentiate between > asp/penn types of > spores. > > Thanks in advance for any input. > > Kerry T. Cooley, CIH > Executive Director > EHSNet.net > Home Page: http://www.ehsnet.net > Forum: > http://www.ehsnet.net//ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?Cat= > Enviornmental, Health and > Safety Discussion Forum > > ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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