Interested in learning how you can help train detection dogs working on the front lines of the COVID-19 fight?

The Working Dog Center at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine is a national research and development center for detection dogs.  Detection dogs perform a variety of important functions, including sniffing out substances like drugs and explosives and locating victims of natural and man-made disasters.

The Center is currently researching dogs’ ability to detect the presence of COVID-19, and they are seeking help from the public in training these dogs.

If you are 18 years of age or older and have been recently tested (or will soon be tested) for COVID-19, you can volunteer to help.  Your test results can be either positive or negative to participate.

How does this research work?  Volunteers will be asked to fill out a health survey.  The Center will send out a t-shirt for you to wear.  The shirts are then sent back to Penn to be used in training and testing the dogs.

Researchers are hoping to discover if there is a unique, detectable scent associated with the virus, and if it can result in a new screening method utilizing dogs.

Click HERE to read more about the study and take the health survey to see if you qualify.

You can watch a video from Good Morning America on the study HERE.

Top image:  Penn Vet Working Dog Center