Behavior Buzzzzzz with 2 Amys

The Lanternfly Hunters

• ft. Melissa McCue-McGrath, PACT ATI, ABTC ATI • Season 2 • Episode 23

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 44:12

"Problem-solving is hunting; it is savage pleasure and we are born to it.”
 – Dr. Hannibal Lecter, Silence of the Lambs

Join the Amys for a fascinating conversation with innovative dog trainer Melissa McCue-McGrath, who’s turning canine noses into powerful conservation tools… What started as a simple passion project for a research article has grown into a mission-driven crusade against the spotted lanternfly—one of America’s most destructive invasive species.

We explore how scent detection training works, why dogs are uniquely suited for this kind of environmental work, and how Melissa is bringing this training into shelters—giving dogs not only enrichment and purpose, but potentially a second chance at adoption. From the science of odor detection to the real-world impact on ecosystems and agriculture, this conversation bridges behavior, enrichment, and conservation in a truly inspiring way.

Whether you’re a trainer, veterinarian, or just someone who loves seeing dogs make a difference, this episode will leave you thinking differently about what our canine companions are capable of, and how they might just help save our trees.

Grab a cocktail, and get up to speed on the latest buzzzzzz, courtesy of your favorite VBees 🐝🐝, on the latest episode of Behavior Buzzzzzz with 2 Amys veterinary behavior podcast.



Bee Positive. Bee Informed.

JOIN US and the HIVE MIND at behaviorbuzzzzzz.com
Facebook behaviorbuzzzzzz
Instagram @behaviorbuzzzzzz

Thank you to our amazing sponsors:
PRN Pharmacal, makers of Reconcile®
Nestlé Purina PetCare, makers of Purina Pro Plan® Veterinary Diets & Purina Pro Plan® Veterinary Supplements
Malena DeMartini, Inc. founder, Certified Separation Anxiety Training (CSAT) & Mission POSSIBLE
Ceva Animal Health, makers of ThunderEase® & FELIWAY® products

Amy L. Pike, DVM, DACVB, IAABC-CDBC - Co-Host
Amy Learn, VMD, DACVB, IAABC-CABC - Co-Host
Teryn Blais, Executive Producer
John LaSala, Podcast Editor

SPEAKER_02

Um, close that window so I don't get in trouble with John. You're always in trouble. Uh yeah, not as much as you are. All right, here we go. Welcome, Hive Mind. We are literally buzzing with excitement about today's guest, Melissa McHugh McGrath, a certified professional dog trainer with a wonderful sense of humor, who's joining us to talk about spotted lantern flies and what do dogs have to do with them. This is the Behavior Buzz, a veterinary behavior podcast that aims to bring cutting-edge scientific information and education to pet parents, behavior professionals, and the veterinary community. I'm your co-host, Dr. Amy Pike, a board-certified veterinary behaviorist.

SPEAKER_00

And I'm your other co-host, Dr. Amy Larn, also a board-certified veterinary behaviorist and a novice insect lover. I don't know, file entomology. Hello, Melissa, our cute little honeybee. We're so glad to have you visiting us today. It's so much fun to be here.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, did you guys know that Melissa means honeybee? Melissa taught me that the other day. I was like, wait, what? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Melissa is Greek for honeybee, which makes it even funnier. Because, like, so Melissaphilia is loves bees. Melissaphobia is terrified of women named Melissa.

SPEAKER_00

Terrified of women named Melissa. Because they're gonna sting you. We're gonna eat you. It's very possible. Very possible. Oh my gosh, I love that so much. But you're not Greek, are you? You just have a name that means honey in Greek. Yeah. You don't have any.

SPEAKER_01

It's a kid of the 80s, and so like my parents heard a song that they liked by the Almond brothers, and they're like, let's go with that.

SPEAKER_00

We're living Matt, right? They're like, we're seven Amy's in my English class in seventh grade. I was like, are you freaking kidding me? Amy, Jennifer, Melissa. Like, I feel like those were those were the names. Those were the big ones.

SPEAKER_01

Jennifer and Jessica were like rounding out the top ten. And those were the only ten. Like, wait, right, right.

SPEAKER_00

No other names. No, you're not allowed in this class. You you have a different name. No, forget it.

SPEAKER_01

You shoot out of your mom, and they're like, okay, you have these ten. The way your face circle, pick one.

SPEAKER_00

That's hilarious. Oh my gosh. So, as you all know, we are coming to you live from the PRN PharmaCal Studios, and you guys obviously know what PRN stands for, right?

SPEAKER_02

Um, well, for today's episode, I think the P stands for please. R stands for R I P, and then the N is nymph lantern flies.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, you are so creative. I don't know where you pull that shit from. Oh my gosh. It does not mean that, you guys. It means pro reinata, a Latin phrase meaning as the circumstance arises. And do you know how long the veterinary community has been trusting PRN PharmaCal to be here when needed with industry-leading research and innovative products to improve animal health and quality of life for everybody except for the lantern fly.

unknown

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, PRN has been around since 1978, which is a beautiful vintage. As long as all creatures, great and small, has been airing on BBC. But I'm not sure that the show meant creatures like the spotted lantern flies. I'm not sure. No. I haven't actually watched it.

SPEAKER_00

They weren't even here.

SPEAKER_02

They weren't even here then. That's true. PRN PharmaCal is a proud sponsor of the Behavior Buzz podcast and is committed to the physical and emotional health of animals everywhere, which makes sense why their slogan is PRN PharmaCal. We're here when you need us.

SPEAKER_00

Alright, enough with all of that mumbo jumbo. Let's get started by finding out what's getting us all buzzed today. I again went on theme and I'm drinking a dragonfly, which is gin, lime, and ginger ale, a little bit of bubbly to help you fly. Gives me wings. I should have done a red bowl. I was gonna say six red bowl and some gin. That really gives you some wings. How about you guys?

SPEAKER_02

So I went with the bee's knees, um, which is also gin, a part of honey syrup, which is a one-to-one ratio of honey and water, and then three-quarter part lemon juice. Um, and it is delightful. It's a good spring drink.

SPEAKER_01

And I went with a, this is a little off-brand. It's not gin, although I considered it. Um I went with the Guinness Old Fashioned. Okay. And only in part because I had to. So Guinness Old Fashion, you basically reduce a can of Guinness into basically syrup. You just boil it until like all the water comes off. And then you just use that as your sugar base for an old fashioned, and then you can make a regular old-fashioned on top of it, which is really great. And really amazing. I had made a bunch of this syrup, and I need to get rid of it before the end of April. So, like just drinking that for the rest of April.

SPEAKER_02

Fair, totally fair. So if you need Melissa, she's gonna be under her desk for the rest of your year.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I will not be in the school pickup line for the foreseeable future.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. That sounds delicious. I'm gonna have to remove that. Yeah. So remember, you guys can find all of our signature cocktail and mock towel recipes on our website, behaviorbuzz.com. That's Behavior Buzz with six Zs because we are zapping those lantern flies into oblivion. With our um bug lantern. No, we've got better ways. We're gonna talk about all of it. We've got better ways to take care of them.

SPEAKER_02

I know I feel bad that we're caught talking about like finding animals and killing them on our podcast.

SPEAKER_00

I know. This is not normally the theme of our podcast, but when you have an invasive species that is taking over the world, you've got to figure out what to do.

unknown

That's great.

SPEAKER_00

Uh, let's see. I wanted to start talking about something that also Melissa told us. We love all things bee. And Melissa told us that bees have been trained to find bombs in Croatia. And I want to know if you know more about that. That's like crazy fascinating. I love that.

SPEAKER_01

Um, so during the pandemic, I started like a little podcast for it, it's for kids, and it kind of grew out of that for a few years. I ended after a hundred episodes. Um because like as you guys know, doing a podcast is freaking hard. It's a lot of work. And and as people started coming out of their homes after the pandemic, I'm like, I I want to do stuff. Yeah, but the first I want to see sunlight, not the inside of my closet anymore. So I um so I had the first episode I did, um, it ended up becoming the logo for the show, was like a bee on like this like cartoon bomb with like a flower around it. And it was because of these bombs that uh these bombs that were trained to find bees, bees that were trying to find bombs. And um, so what they had discovered, they used associative learning. So much like we use a clicker for training or for you know, get get a good thing when you do thing, what they had done was they had used, I'm gonna guess TNT, because I watched a lot of uh Looney tunes and I was like, So that's clearly the only explosive. Yeah, but things that come in a big barrel labeled TNT with like the detonation cord. Um, but the uh bees were basically taught to if I find this blow-up chemical, I swarm to it and then I get nectar, I get sugar water essentially. And so it's much faster and easier and a lot cheaper to train a whole bunch of bees to find that and then watch where they swarm in Croatia because after the war, there are still millions of unexploded landmine ordinances in Croatia. And people today, the the war, I believe, ended in the late 80s, early 90s, and they are still dealing with people who are dying and are getting amputated and all of these horrible, horrible, deforming injuries due to these landmines that have not exploded that were leftovers from the war. And so instead of training these dogs to go out, which is expensive and they're heavy, and it the bees can do it so much faster. So they release these bees, they have bomb people. I am clearly out of my elements. I've trained dogs, um, but they have the bombologists out there, and they they watch the bees and then they're like, Oh, over there. Okay, and then they will get all their equipment, they'll go and they'll they'll disarm the bomb. Isn't that crazy? I love it. Bees are so cool.

SPEAKER_00

I love bees are so cool. I love that too.

SPEAKER_01

Now we're gonna have to look at your podcast. I know. I want to definitely hear more about that.

SPEAKER_00

We'll link. We can link to it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It was it was a fun one. The um we did a hundred episodes, but it was all about the ways that animals intersected at humanity. So, like those bees that we trained to find bombs, or like, what was it that inspired us to like train service dogs to do the jobs that they do? Or like, how did we save the little penguin in Australia by training a couple of marema um dogs? These are really large polar bear-like dogs that will just protect these like tiny little penguins. And they went from having only, I think, nine breeding pairs to over 200 in one season because they had the merema there to protect them from fox. So, yeah, it was it's it's a it was a fun podcast. It was really, really cool, and it really suited my ADHD because I could just be an expert for one week and then completely forget about it. It's like an etch a sketch, like where you just kind of like do a thing and you take it and it's like a new thing.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my god, that's so true. I I was talking to a former guest of ours yesterday, and he was like, Yeah, you know, when we talked about the blah blah blah on the podcast, I was like, Yeah, we did. That's what we did. It was my favorite episode. I how could I forget? So terrible. Zoom right out of the brain. Yep, yep. Goodness. Well, Melissa, bees are not the only reason that you're here, obviously. So, what is the problem with these spotted lantern flies? And and I was gonna say beautiful, because they kind of are really pretty. They are gorgeous, and that's unfortunate.

SPEAKER_01

Although so I ended up getting, you guys will appreciate this. So I got a tattoo of I love it. I got this my dog and the bulb. And I was just so excited that it was pretty because if it was a lamp free going like with its teeth, I don't think I would have gone the tattoo route. Um, so I was pleased that this is a gorgeous little murder bug. But that's great. But in 2014, the spotted lantern fly hijacked on another invasive called the Tree of Heaven. Have you guys seen this or heard of it?

SPEAKER_00

No.

SPEAKER_01

So it's very invasive, um, much like its favorite insect. So it was like a two-for-one deal. Um around shipping crates from Asia in 2014, and they landed in Pennsylvania. So in Pennsylvania, it starts to get out of control out there because, unlike other invasive bugs and pests, this one is what was called an opportunistic layer and lazy breeder, which I thought was quite rude. Like lazy breeder. So, but they will lay their eggs on almost anything. So they don't, they are not uh they don't only need the tree of heaven to survive, which is what makes it very dangerous. Things like the emerald ash borer only destroy ash trees and can only feed and only have their entire life cycle in an ash tree. So your maple trees are fine, apple trees are fine, but this little butter, like when it gets here to Maine, where I currently live, which is predicted to be this year, it will take out apple trees, which is a huge crop for us. Maple trees, we have maple syrup weekend every March. Um, that is gonna be a bad day. I believe it was hardwood. So our lumber industry, like two-thirds of Maine is forest, and it and it's um it's a big driver of the lumber industry. So people buying houses, building sheds, going to Home Depot. Anything that needs wood is gonna be a problem. And it can take out up to 70 crops here, which is really, really bad. And given the theme of your show, hops and wine grapes are also particularly at the time. Oh, I know they're all gonna die. Um, but what happens is like, so they the lantern fly will like kind of suck some nutrients out of whatever organic material it can find, and then it will like kind of cover the injury of the plant with this vomitous substance called honeydew. And it looks almost like cement or mud spatter. So it's indistinguishable from just other dirt in the in the forest. And so when they lay these things on cars and also use that honeydew to protect the eggs over winter, you're just seeing a muddy mud spatter car. You're not looking for lantern fly eggs. Oh man. Maine is vacation land. Every car that comes over that bridge from New Hampshire that has Indiana plate, Ohio plate, New York plate, Boston plate, Massachusetts plate, New Hampshire, wherever, it's in 18 states now. When we started, um we were picked as one of a group of six to do this study for Texas Tech and Virginia Tech to see if they could train pet dogs to find this invasive species because of how dangerous it is. And we were able to, which was really, really fun and a really cool project. But every time I'm out there with my dog and I'm looking at all these license plates, I'm like, is that Mutz better or is that lantern flight goose?

SPEAKER_02

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's awful.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So that's why it's a bad thing. So some of that answered my next question. Where are they? And and you, if you want to list those states, that would be great. Sure. Where did they start? You said Pennsylvania, central Pennsylvania, because the trees came over, and how fast are they moving?

SPEAKER_01

They're moving quite fast. So when I started this study in 2023, we had picked up the torch, I think December. So we technically started January of 24. It was only in 14 states at that point. By the time we had finished, it was in 17 states, and it's now in 19 to 21. So it's moving ridiculously fast, and climate change is a big driver of that because now the eggs can stay overwintered, which is what they need. They need to overwinter, but not so cold that they freeze and die. Because if you flash freeze them, they die, and then you can use them for training, which is what we did. Um, so we had to keep them cold and frozen for a long period of time.

SPEAKER_00

So that's good in New England, right? I feel like that's where you're gonna get some of those flash freezes. Yeah, maybe they'll actually stop them up, maybe make it cold. That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I mean, other than freezing, is there anything that we can do to stop these little buggers?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, if you see them, um, or if you see what you suspect is an egg mass, because they lay in like tiny little rows. I've got like this um, I've been doing a library talk around Maine and New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, where my dog and I go and we show off like the sideshow and all that stuff. There was a recorded version of that from the Rockland, Maine Public Library, and they recorded the presentation so you can actually see what the eggs look like, what you can do, how we train these dogs, all the stuff like that. It's totally for free. I want as many people to know about this as possible. If you happen to see an egg mass or if your dog alerts on it, if you've trained your dog to find it and they alert and say that these are spotted lantern flies, you can take a credit card and you can just kind of scrape it into a bag of sanitizer. That's all you need to do. And then that will kill those eggs, which is great. If you're seeing the flies themselves, a newspaper rolled up is the only time as a dog trainer I will ever recommend a program newspaper. Finally, we have a use. Um bad, you gotta show it dominance and you gotta like alpha roll it first. You roll it over and hit it with a newspaper.

SPEAKER_03

Bad bug.

SPEAKER_01

I'm kidding, of course, but like, but having these um anything you can do to squish them, stomp on them, kill them, and it is hard because they are so pretty. Like they have, like I was able to show this tattoo, but like they have these like white wings that have like little tiny little black flecks on them, and then their lower wings are scarlet red with black. I had to check the text like my dog with black spots as well. The nymphs uh go through two stages, they're bright scarlet red with white dots, and they're also black with white dots as they're going through their progression. And then the adults die in the winter, which is why we train the dogs to find the eggs. Because if the eggs are overwintering, we can send the dogs out in winter, kill as many as we can, and then reduce next year's population.

SPEAKER_00

Right. That's so important. Yeah. A couple of years ago, I went, so uh, we're in Virginia, and my niece got married over in near Lynchburg, near the mountains, and she rented out this little hotel roof to have her wedding, and we came up to the roof, and it was like a locust infestation of lantern flies. Oh wow. They were crawling everywhere, and we're all stamping on them. They have like hotel people that are there to try to like sweep them up and get rid of them. But I was like, this is so disgusting. Like, eh? Yeah. I mean, she did the wedding was great, right? She didn't seem to be stressed. I would have been so stressed, I was like, oh my god, these bugs are taking over my wedding. But yeah, just like we're you're walking around and you're crunching, crunching, crunching on all these tantra flies. And I was like, You are beautiful, but this is a lot right now.

SPEAKER_01

Like, they're everywhere. You know what I did uh after we had all done this study and and kind of went through hell doing it, but we we did it. I went on Etsy and I found somebody had taken the wings and put epoxy on them and turned them into earrings, and so I got all of my assistants and and owners' earrings from the lantern. Amazing. And when I go on a give talks, I wear the earrings and then I pull them out and pass them around so people can see how big they are. Great. Yeah, it's great, so grown up.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh. So crafty, whoever that was. I know, and there's plenty to use, right? They guess they're gonna be millions of dollars as a funny commodity. Oh my gosh. Well, tell us more about the use of dogs in hunting these flies. That's just fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so like they thought the idea is that you're walking your dog at night anyway. And given how fast this invasion is moving, we know that dogs can find things, right? Like they can find accelerant and arson cases, they can find missing people, they can find weapons, they can find they can find a potato chip crumb. Like, yeah. Um, your dog can find things. This is what they are made to do. They see the world through that giant schnause. And and you guys will appreciate this too. In one of the groups, pugs outperform German Shepherds.

SPEAKER_00

There is no way that's true. That I know you're saying that, but there is no way that it's true. They can't even breathe. They can't even breathe. And their olfactory epithelium is tiny, right? Like dogs have 15 times the smell receptors that humans do. But when we're talking about like schnauzes, right? German shepherds, all our long-snout dogs have more than our bulldogs and our pugs. I cannot believe that's true.

SPEAKER_01

Military of the two, who's gonna get more distracted? A pug or a German shepherd that's like squirrel fair, I think. I mean, the pug can't even turn its head to tell you there's a squirrel. So maybe that was part of it. They have like no neck. Um but yeah, so um, but the idea of this study between Texas Tech and Virginia Tech was can we train pet dog owners to do this thing that competition dog trainers train for or that military train for, but can we use different techniques to do so? And the answer was yes, like all of the dogs that participated in the study, there was an a there was a 40% attrition rate for those who signed up and were selected of the hundred and I think 180 dog teams and 150 handlers. So some handlers had two dogs. Of that 180, there was a 40% attrition rate, which I thought was really high. But I was interviewed on like another podcast with researchers and they were like, oh, that sounds about right. That's very low. I'm like, wait, what? I obviously have no idea how science happens because I like it as extraordinarily high. But I guess it wasn't. And so of that 40%, almost all of the teams were able to go on to either live invasion or were able to complete all three tests that they had us do, which was us, because we don't have live invasion to test on in Maine yet. So they gave us an additional test to try. And that was how far away from a center point can your dog pick up an odor? Is it five meters, 30 meters, 80 meters? Um, so that was what we ended up contributing to the study. But yeah, but the dogs, um, many of the dogs who did the study, especially in places like Ohio and I believe New Jersey, a couple of the states, definitely Ohio, because the metro parks there, are using the dogs that were in the study to actually go around. So they're now like employed with them. I love it. Not our nerds, though, because all of my nerds are behavior cases. Um like I I was like, they're not gonna pick us because I use scent work for behavior. I use scent work to get confidence, and all of my dogs, all but one, were a behavior case or had a behavior plan. And we didn't have live invasion, and I'm not a competition trainer in any capacity. And I'm like, yeah, what and we they're not gonna pick us. And then they picked us, and I was like, guys, I have no idea what I'm doing. And they're like, neither do we. We're like, great, let's do it.

SPEAKER_02

Let's do it together. Let's do it together. How long did it take to train the dogs to sniff it out?

SPEAKER_01

So we had 14 weeks to get them to pass what's called an ORT, the odor recognition test. And what the ORT is, is like you've got a bunch of boxes. Some of those boxes have lanternfly eggs in them, but some of them have a glove that you might be handling. Some might have grass or mulch or other things that they would find in the environment as distractor items. And the dogs would have to tell you it's the lantern fly is in box two. The lantern fly is in box five. And so they had a 10 series test where of those 10 trials, they had to get at least eight correct. And four of my six dogs were able to do that. The other two, the captain was pulled, Captain's my dog. Um, he was pulled from the study because as we were talking off air, he has chronic sinus infections. But at the time, our vet was convinced it was cancer. So we're like, okay, he's only got like three months to live, so we're gonna pull him and not do this. Yeah, and then it turns out he just says idiopathic sinus infection. We can't clear it. It's been three years. He's still here, he's not dead. So it wasn't. Thank God it's not cancer. Yeah, it wasn't cancer. And and he clears fields for them, he does demonstrations. Um, like he he can find it. Just so we pulled him for that. And another dog had, and as behaviorists, you guys will get this, like as applied animal behaviorists and board certified behaviorists, you guys will understand. I had one dog, June, who went in and a fire truck went by. Oh no, flared the horn as she was taking her test, and she completely fell apart. This poor dog. And so we ended the test there. We're like, okay, we'll give her another try in a couple days. She came back for it, and the owner was like visibly upset and was like, I'm really sorry, but she's not looking for it at home. She's not doing this, it's supposed to be fun for her. I have to pull her and the poor owner, and I'm like, I will never come for anybody advocating for their dog. I think that was her choice. So instead, June found cheese in the boxes instead of lantern flies. So we gave her a 10 cheese test. I love it. And I always joke that like when we take the dogs to the winery to like go test and see, like that she can go sniff out the cheese that will match with the wine that they give us. Perfect. As a thank you. Um, but yeah, but she is now back in my classes and she's searching for lantern fly again, and she's showing other dogs how to do it. So of my six with the study, four passed in real life, all six passed. All of them, yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, so that was I was very, very proud of them. But yeah, so we but we only had 14 weeks. Like, if you're looking at an operational handler, like somebody who does this in real life, like, and they are missing finding missing people, those dogs are training for years. Yeah, right. And continue. Minimum six months. Yep. Minimum six months, and then years of actual training and certifications and pushing the dog's abilities through some unimaginable environmental challenges and things. And our dogs are like, hey, there's a squirrel. They're just like, I'll go look for that in a second, but I gotta like scratch my back. Um, so like they were pet dogs through and through. They made us laugh every time they went out, but they were able to do it. And and as a result, we were able to show that yes, you can train these pet dogs to do it. There are certainly limitations, but for the most part, like if people wanted to train for this invasive, they potentially could. I would not recommend getting lantern fly and bringing it into your state to train on, right? And I would also not recommend um just starting with lantern fly, trying other odors first to make sure that the dogs can do it. But you could safely, there are safe ways to do this. That's cool. Yeah, how did you guys get the eggs? You said you like froze them. So this like a totally normal day, the uh university sent me via like the US post office a box of frozen dead fly eggs. Awesome. And like tiny little, it looked almost like window screen metal mesh kind of folded over, and the eggs were in there. So like we were able to train the dogs to the metal mesh that had the flies in it. And then one of the distractors was metal mesh without the eggs, so that way we couldn't say for sure that they're not looking. Yeah, they're not looking for the metal with their nose. Yeah, very cool.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, that is super smart. So, like you said before, we use dogs to sniff lots of things, like especially our really highly trained dogs are finding cancer cells and lost humans and drugs and bombs and all of the things. And I was at an airport and I saw the one of the um dogs in training, and he he pulled somebody over, and and they had to go through their backpack, right? And um they there were no drugs in the backpack, but they had a ham sandwich in a Ziploc bag. And so I'm I'm like chuckling to myself because I know it all, and I'm like, oh, the dog went after the ham sandwich. And so I was asking the guy later, I was like, hey, you know, like, do you get that often? Like the dog went after the ham sandwich. He's like looking at me like I'm so stupid. And I was like, I thought I was really smart. I'm like, I don't know what happened. And he goes, the dog did not alert to the ham sandwich. The dog alerted to the Ziploc bag because drugs are in bags.

SPEAKER_03

And I was like, shut your mouth right now. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So I'm I'm the asshole. And I was like, dang ham sandwich.

SPEAKER_01

There's a similar story. We worked, um, a friend of mine had a dog training center in Massachusetts, and she invited me and my then, I think she was like six-year-old daughter, dressed as Pikachu because why not? Um and they brought that, she was friends with the bomb detection dog handler in Rhode Island. So she brings the dog up, is doing this demonstration for us in this like slideshow, and she was talking about how those dogs, like dogs like in the military, are usually cross-trained. So you either get apprehension and drugs or contraband and missing people, like whatever the case might be. If if they're employed, they want to get as much as they can out of these dogs. The only one that doesn't get cross-trained are bomb or explosive detection dogs because they have to learn up to 17,000 odors, different compounds, different connections. And one of the things that they're trained on, going back to the Ziploc bag, is detonation cord. She called it details now. That is a plastic, that is a rubbery plastic substance that is also the same odor as My Little Pony and Barbie. So guess who was getting hit on in airports before they realized that they had this problem? So then they had to basically teach the dog a flow chart if this confirm with a second odor. So, like, if you find the deck chord, that's your first clue, but you have to keep digging. So interesting. Yeah, no more kids. He's like, like, can you have like a little cherubrious like four-year-old, like, I'm going to like to split up on and then, what's the puppy doing?

SPEAKER_03

Oh man. What is the puppy doing? We're going to airport jail.

SPEAKER_02

Give up the Barbie gel.

SPEAKER_00

So, how is it different? Like, is this the same type of scent detection work? Is the training the same? Like, how is this the same or different than what we're doing with the land question?

SPEAKER_01

And I like it because like they didn't tell us how to do it. I said there were 180 teams across the country. And each of them, like each cohort was kind of assigned a trainer. And so I was the trainer, and then I had five students plus my own dog that my daughter was handling. So we had six in our cohort. I was the trainer. I trained them the same way that I would have them look for birch or clove or anise or any uh scent work oils or nosework oils, depending on if you're feeling litigious. Come after me for saying nose work, and I'm not a nose work teacher. But like those same oils, I would train the same way. I start with teaching them find it means you get the thing you want in a box. So if it's a toy, if it's food, find it means you're getting this primary reinforcer. And then we start to making the box game a little bit harder. We might add more boxes, we might add height, we might have like a little fan going, but the dog is still looking for food or their ball. And then you start putting that odor in with the food, and then you start taking some of the food out each trial. And then eventually they're just looking for the odor and they're receiving the reinforcer at the source of the odor. Or as close as you can get, because sometimes it's up really high. But you do your best, and that way they're those dogs are not necessarily looking for a lantern fly, they're just looking for a way to get a cheese stick. Right. Right. And that's what they do in the military. That's what they do in police work. It's just so we're using boxes instead of these like fancy um hurzwalls where they have like the holes and you've got like very stiff-looking people standing there in cargo pants and like military. America. Yeah. Like so it's just us who eat quinoa. We're just like, quinoa. Have a cheese stick.

SPEAKER_00

It's basically the same thing. It's toxic on.

SPEAKER_03

We've stopped. Oh god. So funny. Oh my god. Basically it's always the same thing.

SPEAKER_02

So, you know, like like I don't know, what what kind of breed of dog was the one at the airport, Aim?

SPEAKER_00

It was, I don't remember now, is either a shepherd or a mall. It was a shepherdy.

SPEAKER_02

It's like in DC here at Dulles, they have like the German short hair pointers. Um, and then I know they have like the Beagle Brigade to search out. Oh, yeah. I have seen Beagles in the airport too, and I was like, so like training a beagle to find food.

SPEAKER_01

Real hard guys. That's how hard. So hard.

unknown

I know, right?

SPEAKER_02

True.

SPEAKER_01

This plastic bag is in the way of my ham sandwich.

SPEAKER_02

Damn it. That dog is definitely on the ham sandwich. Learning on the ham. For sure. For sure. So, like, I mean, obviously, you said these are your behavior cases, so they're not like specially bred dogs or like any certain breed, right? Correct. Um you said pugs are the best in one cohort.

SPEAKER_01

Um I don't know how many bugs they had in the other cohorts. In our group, we had four mixed breed dogs and two purebred dogs. Five of them were rescues. So uh the only one that was a purebred, intentionally bred dog was a Doberman named Tempi. Um, and she has gone on to do other competitive stuff. She's not my behavior case. She's gone on to do fast cat and barn hunt, tons of nosework stuff, agility, like man trailing, which I was unaware was a scent work game. And I was just like, man, if they had that when I was in college, I would have been great at this. Like, did not know it was a dog sport. Um, but like Tempi's great at it. Good for her. Um like yeah, so she does a bunch of other competitive stuff. The other dogs do not, the other dogs need their space and they like things a certain way, which also makes it a little bit more challenging because it's like, yes, these dogs can do it, but in what environment would Hopper, like this little guy, be good at? He hates kids, he's not great with men. But if if he were trained on like emerald ash borer and there was a bunch of felled trees, he could run those easily as long as there's not a lot of distraction. Captain, who loves kids, can do this in schools and like demonstrate and educate. And that's what he does. He goes into like little kid schools, museums, libraries, things like that. Um, so he's 12, he's the old man of the group. And then we've got um Woody, who was a Britney Spaniel, who had such severe separation anxiety that the neighbors called animal control one day when they went out grocery shopping because they didn't realize that he was that distressed. They found out and then they jumped right on it. He had actually been the dog with the least amount of time with me. I think he had been doing scent work one. So he'd only been doing it for like a couple of months. All of the other dogs, the other five dogs um that were with me, had been doing this for three or more years at the time. And and he and Woody ended up being one of my most accurate and dedicated hunters. Yeah. Oh, good for him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Doesn't matter your previous experience. I love that. Yeah. It's not like anybody can do this.

SPEAKER_01

That ain't even a pug. My puppy.

SPEAKER_00

Even a pug. My puppy, I say puppy, but he's uh eight months old now. He's a kind of corso, Neapolitan Mastiff, lots of different crazy breeds in there. But he is so sniffy that if we are out on a walk and he decides that he doesn't want to walk anymore, he sits down and he's like, I'm not going. And I was like, Okay, I'm not gonna make you go. I don't know why you've chose that this is the spot that we're turning around, but we are. And when we turn around, I could theoretically let go of the leash. I don't because he's giant and everybody's scared of him. But he trails our scent all the way back to where we started. And I don't mean like he knows the way, but he like, if we walked on this side of the sidewalk or this, or we went up into the grass, like he immediately man-trails our scent, mine or his or whatever um, exactly step by step back to where we started. And so I'm like, okay, well, you're sniffy. I figured I clearly haven't done any nose work or something with them because I because I have so much time to do that. But right, um, but I think like I should use that. And I want to teach my dogs how to get rid of these flies. So, like, can anyone do this? How do we sign up? Like, where do we get the information?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so for doing something specific like this, you could reach out to your extension schools and just see if they're if they know of any programs in the area. Otherwise, I would actually just start with like a basic scent work class because once they get the game, then you can add any odor. I always tell my students, like, the cops aren't going in saying, okay, thunder, find heroin. And the dog's like, oh, I guess he doesn't want all that cocaine over there. And like the dog, the dog's brain is a Rolodex, and you're just basically adding other odors. Once they know the game, and that when I hear this cue to go look, it could be any one of these things on this shopping list. And so if you just start teaching your dog the game, even just taking your kibble and just find it and then throw, find it and then throw, because the order matters. Uh find it and then throw, they will eventually start putting their nose to the ground and then you can tell them to stay, tell them to find it after you put it behind your feet. They can't see it, but they know it's back there. So when you release them with find it, they're going to start to sniff and then come around behind you and find it with their nose. So find it means turn on your nose. Then you can start to make your searches a little harder. But yeah, priming them with the game, that's the most important thing, not what they're searching for, because that you can always add later. It only took our dogs like four trials to figure out oh, lantern fly, it's just like clove and birch and all these other things. We got it. Yeah. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_02

It was really cool. Did so was each trainer that was like in charge of the cohort or did you guys you got to train it however you wanted to? Yes. Yeah. So what like what were other people's techniques? Do you know? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

But it because I've never done competitive training. Okay. So for us, like our dogs, like we know what their alert is. We're not forcing an alert. We're not training like um what they would call a passive alert is a sit. Like they're not engaging with the odor, which is great for bomb detection for very good reason. Um, compared to an active alert, which is digging, biting, engaging with the odor, which again, don't want bomb detection. One trial learning. Yeah. Um, but Captain has an active alert because when he goes into schools, it's way funnier when he's destroying a box than sitting permanent proper. So like we just took whatever the dog was offering. Other people trainers, I'm sure, had done it different ways. I do know one group, instead of training, uh pairing food to the lantern fly, they paired a known odor to the lantern fly. So they paired like birch oil to lantern fly and then took away the birch. I do know that was one group. I forgot about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Cool. So obviously those dogs had already been trained on the birch. Yeah, at least part of the protocol was to train them on that. That's really awesome. Yeah. I love it. Um, now aren't you doing stuff with like shelter dogs teaching them?

SPEAKER_01

Most of the dogs here was through the shelter. So we have 25 dogs at the Animal Welfare Society now trained on this. And these are all dogs that were either adopted from our shelter or come to our shelter for training. But a lot of them were former shelter dogs that come back for training and now they're on this invasive. So yeah. That's so cool. I love it.

SPEAKER_02

And like, I love that you know, because like especially with dogs with behavior issues, right? Like the owners tend to focus on like all the stuff I can't do with my pet. I can't go here to the winery, I can't go to the brewery, blah, blah, blah. But now they can do something, and like just I feel like that would be so empowering.

SPEAKER_01

Do you know how puffy they get? They're like, My dog can find an invasive species, right? Like, I had one student that was like, you know, like I have neighbors and they all just see my dog like as a quote bad dog. But you're giving this presentation, my dog is in the slideshow. I'm gonna make sure they go so they can see he's a good dog. And I that broke my heart, like, because this is such a sweet dog. He just has some space issues. Fair. Yes, yeah. Stay out of his space.

SPEAKER_00

Let your lantern fly. Six feet. Stay six feet away from my dog. He's on leash.

SPEAKER_02

So, I mean, we talked about a lot, but if you had to take one thing um and you know, let our hive mind know what this one key takeaway is from today's episode, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01

I would say if you've been thinking about doing something like this, take a scent work class. Your dog can do it. Your dog, even these pugs can do it.

SPEAKER_00

Like you can even the pug can do it, you can do it.

SPEAKER_01

You can you can do it. Um honestly, like if there's any curiosity at all, just try and just see what it's like because it's really cool. And and people learning to read their dog through scent work, I think, is the best benefit.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it is really funny. I took one with Ike, um, Ike Pike, and he his favorite thing is Kong tennis balls, like it's like crack cocaine, so that's what you would search for. So I love it. That was super fun. Yep. Then we faded out the ball to the odor, so very cool.

SPEAKER_00

Yay! That is so cool. Well, now we get to move into the buzz into your beeswax section, where this is the fun part. We pull back the curtain, we want to learn a little bit more about you. We've talked about all of your fun training anecdotes and your lantern fly um adventures. Tell us some more things about you in the real world.

SPEAKER_01

Ooh, well, today my book, Misadventures of the World's Okayest Dog Trainer, drops. So I'm really excited about that.

SPEAKER_02

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01

It was published by 5M in the UK. And they even they were so nice to me because I'm just a dumb American that they did not make me go back and put you's in everything, like behavior. Yeah. But I I did have to have footnotes for things like animal control, because they don't have animal control in the same way in the UK. Oh, wow. Um, so like I'm describing a story about animal control, and they're like, uh, pardon, what's that? So I had to have a footnote like what animal control is. Um so like things like that. But yeah, I I'm very excited about that coming out.

SPEAKER_02

And I'm yeah, I think we'll uh we'll link in the honeypot uh where you can order that. That's amazing. Yes, fantastic. So we here at the Behavior Buzz know you are all very busy bees. Get busy bees! Who live and die by the science like we do. So we'll put all of the references from today's show on the website. I might find some Etsy shop with some lantern fly earrings. But on over to the Honeypot page to find those.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my goodness. Well, thank you so much, Melissa, for joining us today. This was a fascinating discussion about dogs' noses and yet another thing that dogs are doing to save the world. Save the world!

SPEAKER_02

Thank you to our premium sponsor, PRN Pharmacal, the makers of Reconcile. Reconcile is an FDA-approved drug for the treatment of canine separation anxiety in conjunction with the behavior modification plan. PRN PharmaCal is committed to meeting the evolving needs of modern veterinary medicine and dedicated to developing products to strengthen the bond between pets and their people. And HiveMind, we thank you especially because without listeners like you, we would have nothing to buzz on about. So grab a drink, search for some lanternflies, and join us next time for cocktails and conversations. And scent work. And scent work.

SPEAKER_00

Follow us on all our socials.

SPEAKER_02

Facebook at Behavior Buzz, Instagram at BehaviorBuzz, and our website, behaviorbuzz.com. Be positive. Be informed. Now Buzz.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, if you don't like it, that's fine. He's like, leave it to the professional. He's like, that was terrible, and your ears are awful, and I can't remember even recording.