Dogs have long been utilized as superior sniffers — in the military, in search and rescue operations, healthcare screening, and even in protecting the planet.
But for most dog owners, canine companions find a meaningful life sniffing local grasses, plants — and other critters’ feces — on a regular old walk.
For Professor X, a Belgian Malinois who fills the role of Mobile Bay National Estuary Program’s Wastewater Detection Canine, it’s the best of both worlds.
Professor X (lovingly called “X” for short) is the passion project of the estuary, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Alabama Department of Public Health, Cities of Fairhope and Mobile, Mobile County, and Alabama Department of Environmental Management.
He’s got a lot of fans cheering him on.
But his biggest coaches are Paul Orcutt, the dog trainer and handler for the program, and Cody Aloi, the project management for the wastewater detection program at MBNEP.
Orcutt has "roughly 35 years of experience” in training military and defense dogs to find explosives, according to Aloi, who has 16 years of his own experience in the military.
“Paul and I met while in training to go to Iraq, and we have taken lessons learned from finding IEDs — bombs — with dogs to finding bacteria,” Aloi told Gulf Coast Media.
Together, these veterans have initiated a “proof-of-concept” with MBNEP, leveraging their expertise and X’s “roughly 300 million olfactory receptors” to detect human wastewater in the region.
According to NBC 15 News, wastewater contamination is a major environmental challenge that MBNEP confronts — as well as a persistent global issue.
Traditional methods for tracking wastewater contamination can be time-consuming and costly, creating hurdles to achieving clean water and healthy ecosystems.
In fact, the operating costs for canine tracking are estimated to be “at least one order of magnitude lower than those for lab-based microbial source tracking initiatives,” according to NBC 15 News.
So, X has been enlisted as a faster, cheaper solution.
To do this, trainers create “scent profiles” using polymer tubes that “create a snapshot of a target odor profile” in which X can perfect his skills of detecting untreated wastewater.
In his training, X scored an overall accuracy score of 0.99, which indicates that this approach can lead to quicker response and mitigation of contaminated water, according to Aloi.
“Pathogens are a significant source of water impairment worldwide, and this program helps identify these human-source bacteria,” Aloi told Gulf Coast Media. “This program will be used as a screening tool to target efforts before costly laboratory testing needs to be conducted.”
Once samples are positively identified by X, they will then be sent to a lab for analysis. All of this data can then be applied, according to a social media post from MBNEP, “to reduce harmful raw sewage in our waterways and help create a clean water future.”
This program will be implemented in water cleanup efforts in West Fowl River, Fly Creek, and Peterson Branch — all areas in Alabama where high bacteria levels affect both water quality and shellfish harvesting.
Although X is still training, and future implementations of this approach will depend on the pilot project’s success, Aloi and team are confident.
“Immediate next steps would include utilizing this program in other watersheds within the MBNEP service area,” a release from the organization reads. “Beyond this, applying this methodology in the environmental realm is virtually limitless.”
Header images courtesy of Mobile Bay National Estuary Program
