Four years ago, while staying in a hotel in Anchorage, Haines resident Carrie Kinison woke up to a nasty surprise. She was covered in painful red welts \u2014 each about the size of a dime \u2014 extending from her neck to her stomach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when I discovered bedbugs,\u201d she said. \u201cI got bit pretty bad, and that horrified me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, with the help of her 4-year-old bedbug-sniffing rat terrier named Harvey, Kinison is trying to make sure other Southeast Alaskans don\u2019t have to wake up welt-covered. But building her bedbug detection business, Auggie Doggie, hasn\u2019t been easy.<\/p>\n
Shortly after returning from Anchorage, still spotted with bug bites, Kinison decided to start training one of the seven dogs she lives with on her Haines ranch to detect bedbugs. The training process, she said, is no different than that of a bomb dog or drug dog. It just takes a lot of practice and a lot of time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes about 2,00 hours of training time before they get that drive to hunt bedbugs,\u201d Kinison said. \u201cIf someone tells you it takes less time, they\u2019re wrong. You have to throw every experience at them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though Kinison said she has \u201cnever had a better co-worker\u201d than Harvey, he wasn\u2019t her first choice for bedbug detection. When she started her business, it was Harvey\u2019s older half brother Auggie \u2014 the business\u2019 namesake \u2014 that was going to be the bedbug hound.<\/p>\n
Only months after Kinison began training Auggie, whom she said had a \u201cnatural talent\u201d for sniffing out bed bugs, he was killed by a pair of wolves on her ranch a couple miles from the Canadian border.<\/p>\n
Kinison was out for a walk with Harvey, Auggie and her five other dogs, including Harvey\u2019s parents, when they came upon a pack of hunting wolves. The wolves went after 4-month-old Harvey, but when Auggie came to his rescue, the wolves killed him instead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey got out of my sight, so thank goodness I couldn\u2019t actually see the attack, but I heard it,\u201d Kinison said, holding back tears. \u201cAll of the dogs came running back to me except Auggie. He was protecting Harvey; he gave his life for Harvey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Devastated by the loss of Auggie, Kinison wasn\u2019t sure if she was going to start training another dog until a couple months later she noticed that Harvey showed potential.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe caught on so quickly, which is unusual,\u201d Kinison said.<\/p>\n
Harvey passed the 2,000-hour mark about six months ago, but Kinison hasn\u2019t eased up on his training. It\u2019s crucial, she said, to continuously expose a detection dog of any type to the scents that they\u2019re supposed to sniff out. She even keeps a live bedbug at her home to keep Harvey familiar with the smell.<\/p>\n
She also brings him to Talia\u2019s Treasures, a Haines consignment shop, once a week to introduce him to new fabrics and materials, all which could carry bedbugs, to keep his nose sharp.<\/p>\n
Tammy Hauser, owner of Talia\u2019s, said that she agreed to allow Harvey to use her consignment shop for regular training because it gives her peace of mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was open to it because I feel that if I can prevent spreading bedbugs through the items I bring in, I want to,\u201d Tammy told the Empire while Harvey sniffed several old pairs of boots behind her on a low shelf. \u201cMy products reach almost everybody, so if I have any questions about any of them, I can have Harvey check them out and ease my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
So far, Harvey hasn\u2019t ever found a bedbug in Talia\u2019s, but that\u2019s not because they couldn\u2019t be there. Adult bedbugs are about the size, shape and color of apple seeds. They cling to, and lay eggs, on different types of fabric. They are hardy creatures that can survive without feasting on human blood, their dietary staple, for months at a time.<\/p>\n
Once in an environment where they\u2019re able to thrive, such as a mattress or even in movie theater seats, a bedbug population \u201ccan double every 16 days,\u201d according to a 2014 report by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to know the extent of Alaska\u2019s bedbug problem or whether there is a problem at all because people aren\u2019t required to report bedbugs to the health department. This makes them difficult to keep track of, which is why the health department\u2019s latest bedbug statistics are two years old and mostly Anchorage specific.<\/p>\n
But Keith Imel, owner of Juneau Glass, said that when it comes to bedbugs, Juneau \u201chas more than you\u2019d think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Until about two years ago, Imel and his wife, Nima Perez, ran a business here similar to Auggie Doggie. It was called Bedbug Detectives, and for about five years, Imel and his dauchshund Miss Daisy searched Juneau apartments, restaurants and other businesses for bedbugs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a lot of work,\u201d Imel said. \u201cShe was very effective. In fact, there\u2019s no method that\u2019s more effective than a dog.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he retired Miss Daisy a couple years back because he and his wife became too busy with other jobs, and their dog wouldn\u2019t work with any other handler.<\/p>\n
Now, Kinison is hoping to pick up business here in Juneau, but she\u2019s struggling because of the stigma surrounding bedbugs.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just mention bedbugs, and most people automatically get defensive and don\u2019t want to talk about them,\u201d Kinison said. \u201cI thought it would be different with hotels when I first started. I thought they would embrace me, but they really haven\u2019t. As soon as I say the words, people kinda back up, and their eyes widen.\u201d<\/p>\n
She and Harvey have come to Juneau to do some free training work. They were here last fall, and Harvey located bedbugs in several apartments in town, which Kinison didn\u2019t name due to confidentiality agreements.<\/p>\n
Imel, who worked here for years, said that the bedbug stigma is real, in part because of the misbelief that bedbugs only afflict the poor or people of bad hygiene, a point Kinison also made.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bedbug doesn\u2019t care how much money you make, the color of your skin,\u201d Imel said. \u201cIt only cares about the red of your blood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, Imel doesn\u2019t think that the bedbug stink is insurmountable, so long as Kinison is able to show people what Harvey can do. At this point Kinison recognizes that her business is not sustainable, but she\u2019s hoping to turn that around.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople just have to know that I\u2019m out there, and they have to reach out,\u201d she said. \u201cDon\u2019t suffer quietly or be ashamed. There\u2019s nothing to be ashamed about. You can talk about bedbugs, and you can certainly talk to me about them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or at sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Four years ago, while staying in a hotel in Anchorage, Haines resident Carrie Kinison woke up to a nasty surprise. She was covered in painful red welts \u2014 each about the size of a dime \u2014 extending from her neck to her stomach. \u201cThat\u2019s when I discovered bedbugs,\u201d she said. \u201cI got bit pretty bad, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":29270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-29269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29269"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=29269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}