KNOXVILLE, TN (January 31, 2002) - Man's Best Friend just might be a Bug's Worst Enemy

Termite Dog Displays Amazing Talents for UT Extension Agents, Entomologists

Conan is an 18-month-old Brace Beagle who gets downright barbaric when he catches a whiff of a termite. His job is to sniff out these damaging pests. Conan recently displayed his amazing abilities in several demonstrations for agents and entomologists with the University of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service. They were impressed.

"Conan had a certain personality about him that we like, and we thought he would be a perfect dog for the Tennessee area because he's very strong, very focused," says Pepe Peruyero, Conan's trainer.

Focused almost all the time, in fact. Peruyero, a former DEA agent and law enforcement officer, now trains termite dogs in Florida. Conan is the most recent graduate of his program, and if he alerts to live termites, he's almost never wrong.

"We were able to train six dogs to consistently perform at about a 96-to-98 percent accuracy level," Peruyero says.

Termite dogs like Conan are rare in Tennessee, although they've been around in other states for a few years. But it's never been particularly clear just how good these dogs were at finding termites until a recent study was completed at the University of Florida. Conan was one of the dogs studied, and he performed very well.

Now Conan has come north to Tennessee to hunt termites. "This will help the homeowner," says Dr. Karen Vail, UT entomologist. "It's really going to be a benefit for everybody because it can pinpoint live termite activity. It can separate moisture damage from the active termites."

Vail says termites do about $2 billion in damage to homes each year across the nation, and Tennessee is one of the worst states for these pests. She believes the research done at the University of Florida on termite dogs is critical to the pest control industry.

"It was interesting in that they started Conan out working on the scent of the termites so that Conan will only signal where live termites are found. In the past, there's been problems with other dogs not trained as carefully where they'd signal on old damage."

People have to do a visual search for termites, but Conan finds them with his talented nose. The pests give off a scent that a Beagle can pick up. Conan's sense of smell is three hundred times greater than a human's.

"When you walk in a home and someone is cooking stew, you think 'What a tremendous odor. That's just great.' When a dog goes in, he has the capability of analyzing that scent and actually smelling the carrots, the onions, the meat - everything separate," Peruyero says.

Now that his training is complete, Conan is earning a living for a company called Tennessee Termite Dogs. Owner Brian Thoreson has been in the pest control business a long time, and he believes Termite Dogs are the way to go in the future.

"Now we know the type of dog you want, how you develop them, how you train them, how you maintain them," Thoreson says. "If you do that, you can have that accuracy level. I think it's going to be a huge boost to the industry and to homeowners."

Contact: Chuck Denney, 865-974-7141