Our headquarters houses our dogs while they aren’t on deployment and is truly “home base” for these incredible canines. It also functions as an intake location and training facility for our rescue dogs, has capacity to hold and safely quarantine and separate several dogs, has multiple fenced in areas, an agility yard, diverse habitats for field training exercises, and has also become a community learning center as we expand our efforts to expand our community science efforts.

The training center is outfitted to accommodate different purposes including a prep area that includes a -80॰F freezer for specimen storage, an area used for canine fitness and conditioning, a larger training space, and a dedicated room for double-blind and controlled studies to happen with cameras.

We are one of only four institutions in the country that is using olfactometers for training, and the only ones deploying them in the field. Olfactometers are specialized devices used to test, measure, and analyze scent detection capabilities. These instruments control and deliver specific odor samples in a consistent, measurable way, allowing our team to assess how well each dog can detect and differentiate scents. The olfactometers allow incredible accuracy, and can completely remove inherent and accidental training challenges related to human error. This gives us tremendous confidence in our ability to truly test a dog’s ability to discriminate scent, and has led us to test the boundaries of that ability.

Most notably, our shining examples are the detection of Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae at a dilution ratio of 1:1000 and a positive indication for a single seed of invasive sugar cane (tinier than a sesame seed!). The olfactometers are an invaluable tool for refining training methods, testing scent discrimination skills, and enhancing our dogs' ability to detect elusive targets like rare species, invasive plants, or wildlife disease.