The Saskatoon Public Library has a special visitor every three months.

Mikki, a German shorthaired pointer visits each and every one of the SPL’s nine locations and checks the buildings for bed bugs. Beth Cote, SPL’s Director of Public Services says they did some research to determine the best way to see if bed bugs are present.

Once they found out that dogs have a 97 per cent success rate of detecting the pesky bugs, they got in contact with Focuss Canada who has Mikki to detect bed bugs. Cote adds they can also bring in Mikki for additional checks if they suspect bed bugs are present.

The director of public services says Mikki gets all excited like a dog finding a ball or their favourite toy when there are bed bugs around or if they have been present.

Staff will then conduct a visual inspection of the object and see if an insect treatment is needed.