A tail of a water-testing method that relies on common scents

There’s a new reason to love man’s best friend, and it’s pretty doggone awesome: A company is training rescued dogs to sniff out contamination inDog_nose water.

According to a story from Water Online,  a Maine couple’s company — Environmental Canine Services — is the first company to use “scent-trained canines” to discover and track down human fecal pollution in water.

According to the article, it’s an important development, in part because it’s a fast and cost-effective way to identify contamination and then find its source. It’s also an amazing way to save a previously unwanted animal.

The article quotes Karen Reynolds, who co-owns the company with her husband, Scott, as saying “Our method is rapid and cost effective. We’ve had so many requests from small communities to do this kind of work because other methods are time consuming, costly and labor intensive.”

According the piece, the dogs can sniff out contamination in rivers, oceans, storm water, streams and lakes.

To find out more, read this story on Michigan Live.