In the spring of 2011, Annie LaBarre and Kelly Robbins founded their company, Four Paws K-9 Detection, with a beagle named Marley. Marley is a quiet, methodical worker. Both owners agree they owe most of their success to Marley’s hard work and their close partnership with Varment Guard!

Prior to obtaining Marley, Annie and Kelly researched training facilities before making the decision to go with a “PepeDog” from J&K Canine Training Academy in High Springs, Florida. It’s the only facility in the nation that has independent research conducted by the University of Florida supporting the training methods and accuracy rates regarding the dog's abilities. The dogs use their sense of smell to locate live bed bugs and viable eggs, and are able to differentiate live bed bugs from dead bed bugs, fecal material and shed skins.

Today, they have four beagles on the job: Marley, Sprout, Cici and Chaco. All of the dogs, except Chaco, were adopted from animal shelters.

 
To maintain their dogs’ keen detection skills, Annie and Kelly use live bed bugs in their daily training sessions. In scent detection, you do not get a day off. The teams need to be worked everyday, at least twice a day! In addition to daily training, all of the teams are certified annually by NESDCA. The National Entomology Scent Detection Canine Association is a third-party organization dedicated to maintaining high quality standards in the field of entomology scent detection.

Annie and Kelly feel very blessed to work with dogs and to help people in ways that only a dog can. In addition to bed bug scent detection, Four Paws offers basic obedience classes utilizing the PepeDogs’ holistic and compassionate training philosophy. Each day, Annie and Kelly wake up and think, “Today is a great day to work with dogs!” To learn more, visit www.FourPawsK9Detection.com