Imagine if your dog’s favorite game — sniffing out treats or toys — could help protect America’s vineyards, orchards, and forests from a devastating invader.
It turns out, it just might.
A new study led by Virginia Tech found that volunteer dog-handler teams — made up of everyday people and their pets — can effectively detect the elusive egg masses of the spotted lanternfly, an invasive insect that’s damaging farms and forests across the eastern and central United States.
It’s the first study to show that citizen dog-handler teams can achieve detection success rates comparable to professional conservation detection dogs.
“These teams demonstrated that citizen scientists and their dogs can play a meaningful role in protecting agriculture and the environment from invasive species,” said Sally Dickinson, the study’s lead author, who recently earned her Ph.D. from Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “With proper training, dog owners can turn their pets into powerful partners for conservation.”
An invasive pest, a hidden target
The spotted lanternfly, native to Asia, was first detected in Pennsylvania in 2014. Since then, it’s spread rapidly to 18 states, laying its eggs on trees, stone, lumber, and even cars and trailers, where it can hitch a ride to a new home.
Catching the bug early is key — but finding its egg masses is no easy task.
“They often resemble mud smears or lichens and are tucked into bark crevices, cracks, or hidden undersides,” said Mizuho Nita, a plant pathologist at Virginia Tech’s Alson H. Smith Jr. Agricultural Research and Extension Center, who co-authored the study. “Finding them is like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
That’s where the dogs come in.
With a sense of smell that’s tens of thousands of times more acute than humans’, dogs can be trained to sniff out spotted lanternfly egg masses without disturbing the environment. Previous research has shown that professional conservation detection dogs can do this with high accuracy. But professional dogs are expensive, and there aren’t nearly enough of them to cover the growing threat.
So the researchers asked: “What if we tapped into the tens of thousands of dog owners already doing scent detection as a hobby around the country?” Known as recreational scent work, this sport allows dogs to find hidden scents for fun in homes, parks, and training classes.
Dogs of all shapes, sizes, and snouts
Over 1,000 dog owners expressed interest in the study. More than 40 percent had prior experience in sport scent detection or related activities. Ultimately, 182 teams from across the U.S. were selected and given devitalized – or non-hatching – egg masses as training aids. Participants trained their dogs at home or in small groups, with oversight from a designated local trainer.
After several months of training, the dogs were put to the test in two environments – one indoor and one outdoor. In the controlled indoor environment, dogs had to complete an odor recognition test, identifying the box with the spotted lanternfly egg mass from among multiple boxes with other items and scents. Those that passed the odor recognition test advanced to a field test, where they had to find the scent in an outdoor environment with competing smells.
The results? Dogs correctly identified the egg masses 82 percent of the time in the controlled tests. In real-world field trials, accuracy dropped to 61 percent — still better than many human searches. Of the dogs that passed both tests, 92 percent were successful in finding live egg masses with minimal extra training.
Study participant Bill Wellborn of Roanoke said his 7-year-old Tibetan terrier, Pepe, enjoyed the challenge. Over the course of six months, they trained with devitalized spotted lanternfly egg masses two or three times a week for 15 to 30 minutes.
“Anytime you can stimulate your dog, it’s good for them,” Wellborn said. “Pepe obviously enjoys it. And it’s a way we can take dog skills and training to help our community.”
Katie Thomas of Radford and her pit bull mix, Finch, also volunteered for the study, hoping to put their seven years of recreational scent work to real-world use.
“Being able to do the same thing for the greater good — for citizen science — adds another layer we didn’t have before,” she said.
Agriculture’s new best friend?
Erica Feuerbacher, an animal behaviorist and Dickinson’s graduate advisor and co-author, said the findings show the untapped power of community science.
“There are thousands of people out there doing scent work with their dogs just for fun,” said Feuerbacher, associate professor in the School of Animal Sciences. “What Sally’s study shows is that this can be more than a hobby — these citizen-scientists and their dogs can be a valuable resource for fighting the spread of an invasive pest.”
Sniffing out the spotted lanternfly may be just the beginning. A separate study co-authored by Nita, Dickinson, and Feuerbacher with researchers from Texas Tech University found that trained pet dogs could also detect powdery mildew, a major fungal disease of grapes and vineyards, with over 90 percent accuracy.
Together, these studies point to a growing role for dogs — and their owners — in safeguarding agriculture.
For Dickinson, a longtime firefighter and career search-and-rescue canine handler, the project reflects a personal mission: giving more dogs and their humans a chance to do meaningful work.
“This research is about more than detection,” she said. “It’s about empowering people to work alongside their dogs to protect the places and communities they care about.”
About the research
The project was supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative’s Tactical Sciences for Agricultural Biosecurity program.
The research team included Dickinson, Feuerbacher, and Nita from Virginia Tech and Edgar Aviles-Rosa and Nathan Hall from Texas Tech University.