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Maple Ridge pooch sniffing out C. diff

Angus has a nose for smelling dangerous disease in hospitals
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Angus is ready to sniff out dangerous C. difficile in hospitals. Maple Ridge cardiologist Teresa Zurberg came up with the idea

Angus is only two but already he is able to sniff out a potentially life-threatening bacteria.

The English springer spaniel has been trained to detect Clostridium difficile  or C. difficile.

Angus’s trainer Teresa Zurberg, a cardiology technologist from Maple Ridge, first approached Vancouver Coastal Health in 2014 to see if they would be interested in a dog that could detect the bacterium.

They thought it would be great if he could detect the bacteria in patients but soon decided he could detect it on surfaces in the hospital.

Training began on the trip home from the breeder in Montana when Angus was just 10-weeks-old.

“The first whole year of his life he wasn’t on any specific odours he was just learning using his nose gets him what he wants, which is his food or toy,” explained Zurberg.

Zurberg would throw kibble into the grass so Angus would have to use his nose to eat. Then she started hiding his toy.

“Once he got really good at finding his toy and he was a year old and was a bit more mature we started adding the odour to that,” said Zurberg.

Zurberg started adding the odour of C-difficile to his toy and then finally training him with only the smell and giving him his toy or food upon detection.

C. difficile is a bacteria that causes diarrhea and other intestinal conditions.

“In patients that have really bad C-diff, you can smell it,” said Zurberg, who was inspired to train Angus after contracting the bacteria herself.

“By the time we can smell it, though, it is everywhere and we want to stop it before it gets to that everywhere stage,” she continued.

And even though people can smell it, we are not able to detect exactly where the smell is coming from.

Given that no detection dog is ever 100 per cent accurate because of environmental factors, during testing Angus was 95 to 98 per cent accurate.

“It’s hard for us to tell exactly where it is because it is bacteria and you have to swab it and then wait three or four days (to find out the results). But (Angus) tells us exactly where the odour is or close enough, I’m guessing, to within six inches to a foot,” said Zurberg.

Angus comes from a family of a long line of hunters and he is now the only certified dog in the country who can do this specific work, certified by Vancouver Coastal Health.

Dr. Elizabeth Bryce, the Regional Medical Director for Infection Control at Vancouver Coastal Health Acute, says there are enhanced cleaning protocols with special disinfectants that the hospital cleaning staff use. And if they have the opportunity when patients are discharged they use ultraviolet light to disinfect the room.

However, with high patient turnover and only a short period of time to turn over the rooms, using the UV light machinery isn’t always possible.

Zurberg anticipates Angus’ first job will be at Vancouver General Hospital.

“What we hope to do with Angus is that Angus will be able to screen unoccupied areas like equipment storage rooms, shower rooms, hallways, medication rooms and he can tell us whether there are any reservoirs of C-difficile. That can help us strategically deploy the ultraviolet machinery and as well direct the enhanced cleaning. So we really hope when Angus joins our team that he helps us be more efficient when working with our house keeping staff so we can optimize the cleaning that we do,” said Bryce.

She says to be efficient he would have to visit the hospital at least a couple of times each week, targeting the ‘hot areas’ where C-difficile is most likely to be.

Those suffering from it can have multiple episodes of diarrhea a day, with few signs of onset.

Risk factors of contracting C. difficile include being on antibiotics, being over 65, or taking strong antacids, called proton pump inhibitors.