K9 at work

Dogs With a Nose For Mealybugs Go To Work in Napa

Challenge Is to Sniff Out Pests Ruining the Grapes; Ros Passes the Smell Test

By JIM CARLTON

June 14, 2007; Page A1

RUTHERFORD, Calif. -- On a recent afternoon here at the Honig Vineyard and Winery, dog trainer Edwina Ryska wandered through a tangle of grapevines with her golden retriever Ros. "Go search!" Ms Ryska told the year-old pup.

Ros bounded off, her nose in the air, looking for bugs hoping to mate.

Nick Carter is the most famous Bloodhound in history. He was born in 1900 and is credited with more than 650 finds, including one following a 12-day-old trail.

Bloodhounds are known for long ears, wrinkles and tracking ability. When the dog is trailing with its head down, the ears drag on the ground to stir up the scent. Then the wrinkles trap the scent around the nose.

A dog's sense of smell is more powerful than we can possibly imagine. They can easily detect the presence of one drop of blood in a 55-gallon drum of water.

Tests performed back in the 1950s by Neuhaus, it was concluded that dogs "Having an olfactory acuity which is from 1,000,000 to 100,000,000 times that of man, a dog can detect one mg of butyric acid in 100,000,000 cubic metres of air, the "volume', said Neuhaus, of a whole town."

(Olfaction and Odours by William McCartney).