When authorities could find no evidence of microbial growth in an apartment complex in the German province of Nordrhein-Westfalen, they turned to an expert. Oskar, the mold dog.
Dogs have been long used to find missing people, weapons and the presence of accelerants used to set fires. Now man's best friend is being used in another search—the search for mold inside buildings.
"The use of rescue dogs after earthquakes or other catastrophes and the use of tracker dogs to find hidden drugs or explosives is well known," Thomas Diederich, Dipl.-Ing., said. "Swedish dog-leaders were the first to develop the idea of using dogs to find hidden microbial damage."