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Sabina Louise Pierce
Researchers collected T-shirts for the study from volunteers across the country. The volunteers must wear the plain white T-shirts overnight and submit the results of a recent COVID-19 test—or a copy of their vaccination certificate—with their shirt.
Tuukka, a mix of German shepherd, husky, and border collie, practices her virus detection skills at the wheel.
Roxie, a high-strung yellow Labrador, plays before she begins an experiment. “She has to play before she does her study because she has too much energy,” says Amritha Mallikarjun, a postdoctoral fellow at the Working Dog Center.
Researchers take blood samples and mouth swabs before the start of the study to ensure the dogs had not contracted COVID-19.
Meghan Ramos, a sports medicine and rehabilitation resident at the Working Dog Center, swabs the inside of Tuukka’s mouth as Essler, Tuukka’s owner, holds on. Tuukka is new to scent work. “It was funny watching her struggle through it, because going from basic nose work at the house to sniffing out COVID is like going from basic math to calculus,” Essler says.
Cynthia Otto, director of the Working Dog Center, works with Rico, a German shepherd. Otto believes that dogs could one day be trained to screen people for COVID-19 at public spaces, such as airports or stadiums
Toby, a small Munsterlander, walks a metal wheel with eight spokes in search of a cannister that contains a T-shirt worn by someone who tested positive for the coronavirus. “Toby was, as he often is with studies, a little bit of a superstar—he picks it up super quickly,” says Toby’s foster parent, Jennifer Essler. She is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Working Dog Center, which is training dogs to sniff out the virus.