The Florida-based Doctors Hospital of Sarasota has recently onboarded their new four-legged defense against COVID-19: a yellow Labrador retriever named Buffy. With her keen sense of smell and three-month training, the two-year-old pup is helping the hospital screen visitors by sniffing them for the disease.
However, before Buffy discovered how to use her nose for COVID-19 detection, she was actually training to be a service dog. She was one of the many trainees at the Southeastern Guide Dog, a facility that provides service dogs for visually impaired people and disabled veterans free of charge.
Unfortunately, the instructors at the facility noticed that Buffy and three other dogs weren’t quite fit for the role. They were often distracted by smells and had high energies. Because of this, they decided to train the four dogs to detect heightened levels of stress hormone instead.
This skill would come in handy for military veterans suffering night terrors or experiencing stressful situations, where the dogs could help prevent them from going into a panic attack. Unfortunately, they had to scratch the idea when the pandemic began. This, however, opened another door for them.
When they heard about early studies of dogs detecting COVID-19, they thought it was a more timely and appropriate job for Buffy and her pup friends. But to start the training, they needed actual virus samples. That was when they reached out to Robert Meade, the Doctors Hospital of Sarasota CEO, who also happened to be one of their board members.
Robert immediately agreed with the proposal, and in December, the hospital sent deactivated COVID-19 saliva samples to Southeastern Guide Dogs. This launched the facility’s three-month training. And by the start of spring, Buffy scored a 95% accuracy at detecting the virus samples.
The smart pup then did her field test in the hospital, where she successfully detected COVID-19 in an asymptomatic visitor. With her generally reliable nose, Robert decided to adopt her and bring her to the hospital to work three days a week. Watch the adorable Buffy in training here.
Courtesy of Doctors Hospital of Sarasota