COVID-19 Scent
Detection

By introducing and labeling a scent to dogs, they are able to detect the scent when asked the binary question, “Is this your smell?”. Most recently we have used sweat samples from COVID-19 patients and blank samples to ask dogs if they smell COVID. The dogs respond yes or no by pointing their nose to the corresponding hand. In positive samples they smell the human body’s response to the illness rather than the illness itself.
Our dogs have now learned how to differentiate between active infected and antibodies.

The Bond-Based Approach is critical for accurate scent detection. Dogs must feel confident enough to answer what scent is present without feeling pressured to answer biasedly. Therefore, instead of rewarding them only when they smell COVID, we praise them throughout the entire process.