C.J. Snake Sniffer

Another in our 'Working Dog Series'

C.J. the wonder dog couldn’t cut it in the harsh world of drug detection, but doesn’t mind using his trained schnozz to sniff out a snake or two for a good cause.

The 6-year-old chocolate Lab has gone green, working with environmentalists to save the Eastern indigo snake.

For the past couple of months, the snake-sniffing dog has worked for Project Orianne at the organization’s Mopani Preserve near this small central Georgia town. This land, with its long leaf pines and sand hills, is Ground Zero in the effort to save the Eastern indigo snake, and the nonprofit Project Orianne is in the forefront of the movement.

The snake, the largest nonvenomous snake in North America, was once plentiful in Georgia, Florida and Alabama, said Project Orianne Executive Director Chris Jenkins, but its population has been decimated for a variety of reasons. It is listed as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act.

A familiar find

On Tuesday, C.J. worked his last day for the project, sniffing for snakes at Mopani and at The Nature Conservancy in Georgia’s Broxton Rocks Reserve. On Wednesday, he was to head back home to his owners in Washington state, Pack Leader Dog Training.

C.J. checked out a few promising burrows at Broxton, but failed to roust a snake. Within minutes of arriving at Mopani, however, he found a 7-foot male lounging in the sun on the side of a sand hill.


C.J. has been on the job since November, and has aided in locating 10 individual snakes at the 1,000-acre preserve on the banks of the Ocmulgee River.
He’s also been tested by the staff to determine his ability to sniff out the snakes. Bits of shed skin have been hidden, and C.J. has been successful 90 percent of the time in locating the “bait.”

“This is unique, novel science we’re doing with the dog,” Orianne field ecologist Dirk Stevenson said. “It’s been very successful.”

C.J. was trained to find indigo snakes and avoid rattlers, Ravenscroft said. When he gets back to Washington, he’ll be retrained to search for other wildlife. He’s too high-strung for drug work, she said, but loves the out-of-doors.

“He’s found bats and spider monkeys in Nicaragua,” she said.

Now, he can add indigo snakes to his resume.

Jeepers Creepers

Another in our 'Working Dog Series'

A working dog's life is not easy. Some canines gain glory by sniffing out bombs, drugs or land mines, but most do less glamorous labor. Beagles hunt home-munching termites, terriers track toxic fumes from Chinese drywall and collies chase Canada geese off golf courses.

Bedbugs are the latest dirty job. Largely eradicated in the United States after World War II, thetiny, bloodsucking parasites have invaded city after city in the last four years, leaving painful skin welts and pricey pest control bills from Boston to San Francisco. 

Sara pulled on her leash, sniffing up one side of a cluttered bedroom and snuffling down theother. The black Labrador retriever suddenly sat beside an armchair.

Rich Wilbert, her handler, flipped the chair over and poked at thestuffing and seams. He spotted pin-sized drops of human blood -- clear signs of an infestation of bedbugs in the small apartment.

"Good girl, Sara," Wilbert said.He fed her a few treats from a bag as a co-worker made a note to treat the room with insecticide. Sara went back to searching for Cimex lectularius, as she does six days a week.

Bedbugs hide during the day in wall cracks, behind light switches or in other dark places. But the dogs sniff along baseboards, beds and furniture for the pheromones,the faint chemical odor that the insects emit to signal one another, and then alert the handler of an enemy invasion.

No one knows why bedbugs are back. Scientists theorize that the wingless insects hitched a ride on visitors or cargo from abroad, or that they resist pesticide better than their forebears, or even that a new, super-strong strain of household pests has evolved.

What's clear is they are hard to eradicate. Bedbugs may survive a year without feeding, and unlike termites and other insects that cluster in colonies, they can create havoc in small numbers. A single female may lay enough eggs to infest an apartment -- and then crawl 100 feet a day to bite neighbors down the hall.