MYAKKA CITY, Fla. — Last year we told you about a woman in Manatee County training dogs to sniff out the coronavirus. Well, you may start seeing them sniffing around soon.
The Miami Heat were the first team in our state to use these COVID sniffing dogs to allow fans at a game. Now, some of our local teams could be barking up the same tree.
“They’re really special. We bred them specifically to be used for sent detection work,” Heather Junqueira said.
She’s the CEO and founder of BioScent Inc. She’s training dogs to sniff out someone infected with COVID-19.
"They have an incredible sense of smell,” Junqueira said. “They see the world by smell, where we see the world by sight."
Junqueira is training 64 dogs right now. She's using beagles and testing out beagle basset hound mixes.
"The goal with these dogs is to try and get the nose of the basset hound, with the drive of the beagle,” Junqueira said.
She says they train these dogs by using samples - like sweat or a face mask - from someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.
“We train the dogs to identify that odor amongst controlled odors,” Junqueira said. “So, we also get samples from people who have the flu or have a common cold, or people that are just perfectly healthy and we train them to identify the COVID amongst those samples.”
She says the goal is to use these dogs as a screening tool at big events.
“My main goal with these dogs is just to be able to help people, you know, so we can really live our lives again,” Junqueira said. "This can be a way to help people feel more secure and being able to go out and go to events.”
Junqueira says she's already had success using them at a gymnastics event with over 400 people.
“We had two dogs there that were screening people as they entered the event,” Junqueira said.
She even offered them up to be used at the Super Bowl.
"I think it was probably too short of a timeframe, but absolutely if they change their minds or are like hey we would love to have dogs there, we have 10 dogs that are ready to go,” Junqueira said.
Even though you won’t see these beagles and beagle basset house mixes at the Super Bowl, some other teams plan to put them to good use.
"We're in talks with a couple different teams in the NFL and also talking with some major league baseball teams,” Junqueira said.
She says there's always an on-going research element to this, so she's partnering with USF as well.
"We are working with the University of South Florida, putting a couple different studies together,” Junqueira said. “One of our goals is to do a deal with a local sports team to be able to screen fans coming in and kind of track how that process goes, so we get some good data to move forward with other sporting events.”
She can't spill the beans quite yet on who that team is, but she hopes to have something in place within the next month.
“We are very hopeful that this is going to catch on,” Junqueira said. “I think that these dogs in the future are going to be part of that new normal.”
Junqueira says she’d also love to see the dogs being used at other community gatherings.
“I'd love to see these dogs being used in the Tampa Bay area to help students in schools, to help with the large church gatherings, and different community events,” Junqueira said. “More than just the large sporting events but really be able to help the entire community to get back to living.”
An NFL spokesperson also told us they'll keep these dogs in mind for future Super Bowls.