Skip to content

Super sniffer on the job at Cranbrook hospital

Angus the Spaniel was Canada’s first dog to be certified to sniff out the bacteria C. difficile
12490667_web1_angus-and-jaime-web
Jaime Kinna of Invictus Detection Dogs and Angus, and English Springer Spaniel who was Canada’s first certified C. difficile sniffing dog (now there are two, and two more are in training). Angus was patrolling the East Kootenay Regional Hospital on Tuesday, June 26. (Barry Coulter photo)

A four-legged superstar of B.C. Health Care world was on hand at the East Kootenay Regional Hospital this week, on the prowl for Clostridium difficile.

Angus, an English Springer Spaniel out of Vancouver, was the first dog in Canada to be certified to detect the bacteria in hospitals. C. difficile attacks people whose digestive tracts have been made vulnerable by antibiotics. The bacteria are the most common cause of infectious diarrhea in hospitals and care facilities.

The dogs are owned and trained by Invictus Detection Dogs, a company run by Teresa Zurberg. Angus’s services are currently contracted by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, though his sniffer is in demand around the province.

“He currently works out of Vancouver Coastal Health four days a week,” said Jaime Kinna, Angus’s handler. “Mainly out of Vancouver General Hospital. But we do do other venues throughout B.C.”

Sniffing one’s way through a hospital is a job of work indeed.

“We don’t do a whole hospital in a day, certainly,” Kinna said. “We usually do about four units in a day — he does a search of a 33-bed unit, and then we give him a half hour break. Because this is a physical and mental job for him, this way he has time to relax, regroup and recharge his super-sniffer, and then we go off to the next unit.”

Dog work bacteria detection can actually be fast and effective. If the bacteria are detected, the unit can then be sterilized with the ultraviolet light.

Angus has been on the job for two years. He was the first dog in Canada to be validated to sniff out C. Difficile, but he has since been joined by another certified dog. Two more are in training.

Both Zurberg and Kinna have handled explosive detection dogs and narcotics detection dogs, but Angus’s career and others like him represent another step in the evolution of dogs helping out in human society.

And fittingly, on Monday, June 25, Vancouver Coastal Health’s C. difficile Canine Scent Detection Program received the award for the Top Innovation In Health Care at the B.C. Health Care Awards.

“Our whole thing is dogs helping people, and improving health care,” Kinna said. “This is bacteria that is common among all health authorities and care facilities, so if we can use the dogs’ natural abilities and talents to help save lives, then why wouldn’t we?”



Barry Coulter

About the Author: Barry Coulter

Barry Coulter had been Editor of the Cranbrook Townsman since 1998, and has been part of all those dynamic changes the newspaper industry has gone through over the past 20 years.
Read more