Mussel Detection Dogs: Saving Lakes and Reservoirs

The sniffing, ball-crazy yellow Labrador retriever just wasn’t a good fit as a service dog for an autistic child or as a search and rescue dog.

But Debi DeShon thought he might be perfect for mussel detection work. Two-year-old Tug had the qualities that she looks for in prospects that she trains to detect the invasive quagga and zebra mussels: a high drive for retrieving, solid prey instinct, and the ability to get along with people and other dogs.

The ball-crazy dog loves detecting mussels, DeShon says. He “is a very solid dog that works all day.”

In 2008, she watched canines search for these destructive mussels during a California Department of Fish and Wildlife demonstration. The year before, the invasive quagga and zebra mussels had been discovered at Lake Mead, Nevada.

DeShon says these finger-nail sized, striped mussels change the ecosystem of water bodies by sucking the nutrients out of the water. They secrete glue-like threads that attach to most anything: boats, buoys, docks, piers, pipes, and intake screens of water treatment and power plants as well as to native mussels, crayfish, aquatic vegetation, aquatic insects, and slow-moving turtles. Dense colonies of these invasive mussels also may crowd out and/or smother native plants and other organisms that live at the bottom of lakes, reservoirs, and in other fresh water bodies. Their razor-sharp broken shells litter shores and beaches.

These mussels only live two to three years but their prolific reproduction of a million eggs per breeding cycle each year makes up for their short life. DeShon notes that they can have three breeding cycles in one year in California! She adds that adults can survive out of water for up to thirty days in a cool damp environment by tightly sealing their shells. That means they can be transported on boats trailered from one water body to another.

That’s why counties and states often require inspection of boats for these mussels before watercraft are allowed on lakes and reservoirs, DeShon says.  Handlers walk their mussel detection dogs that have a keen sense of smell, up to and around boats and trailers but the team doesn’t climb on board. A typical search takes about two minutes. In contrast, human inspectors may have to board a boat during an inspection that often takes between ten or fifteen minutes, she explains. Thus, dogs are much more efficient than their human counterparts.

At the Fish and Wildlife demonstration, DeShon remembers thinking, “I can do that (train dogs to detect mussels).”  That thought prompted this life-long animal lover to found Mussel Dogs that now has seven full- time mussel detection dogs, plus two semi-retired canines, and a total of fifteen handlers and screeners.

DeShon’s educational and employment background made her a natural to launch the company. She holds a bachelors of arts degree in Agriculture Business and Management from the University of California at Davis and an associate’s degree in exotic animal training and management from Moorpark College, CA.

She says she had a special fondness for German shepherds until she started working for InterQuest Detection Canines in 1996. That’s when she became partial to Labradors. She handled dogs that were trained for a variety of detection — including of narcotics and gunpowder—but not mussels. During her twenty-two-year years with Interquest, she owned and operated franchises in central California.  Prior to that, she helped train dogs for Hollywood productions, including the movie Beethoven and its saint bernards, under the guidance and mentorship of the late Karl Miller of Animal Action.

A chocolate Labrador named Popeye was her first trained mussel detection dog. He still adores his detection job at the age of 11.

About half of her canine team are Labradors and/Lab mixes, all of whom love to search for the mussels. Zebra mussels, which originated in the Caspian Sea area of Asia, were first discovered in this country in the Great Lakes in 1989. Quagga mussels, native to the Ukraine, also arrived in this country on ocean ships that discharged ballast water into the Great Lakes. They both have been found as far east as the Hudson River in New York and as far west as California.

Thanks to the relatively mild climate in much of California, DeShon’s mussel detection dog/handler teams work year-round. They are especially busy every weekend from the Memorial Day to Labor Day.  On those weekends, her teams may screen more than 200 boats each day, she says.

With temperatures in the high 90s and low 100s, two teams work at busier ramps, such as at Lake Sonoma, in the summer. The dog/handler teams rotate every twenty minutes between searching for mussels and resting, she notes.

Her teams also work at other freshwater locations including Lake Mendocino, New Melones Reservoir, Woodward Reservoir, Lake Nacimiento, and Modesto Reservoir.  They’ve also worked or demonstrated their skills in Washington state and Texas and will do so this year in Wyoming.

Mussel searches

DeShon’s clients include various state Fish and Wildlife entities, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Bureau of Land Reclamation, and county parks departments as well as county water agencies.

She says some clients request both a screener and handler/dog team. Before watercraft is allowed onto the water, the screener asks about where the boat has been and other pertinent questions to assess the likelihood of mussels hiding on the boat and/or trailer.

The screener relays the information to the canine’s handler before the dog, always leashed, searches the boat, trailer, and hauling vehicle. If the canine detects a mussel, the dog sits or stares at a location on the boat or vehicle to indicate that he/she has found a mussel. If so, the appropriate agency, such as the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, is called in to remove and destroy the mussels, De Shon explains. That’s only happened three times in the past ten years, she notes.

If a client only requests a dog/handler team, the handler asks the screening questions before commanding the dog to “suche.”

Mussel Dog Training

DeShon starts training dogs for mussel detection work by playing hide and seek with a toy or ball associated with mussel smell. Once the dog is familiar with the scent, she hides mussels which she acquires for training purposes via a permit from California Fish and Wildlife Department.

She also teaches them basic canine good citizen manners which are essential because they work out in the public and mustn’t react to barking dogs in vehicles trailering and/or carrying boats.  Total training time is about six weeks, she estimates.

Dogs that are obsessed with a toy often turn into excellent mussel detection canines, DeShon says. Her canines have come from various sources, including California based rescue organizations as well as Train a Rescue in Oregon.

And, she adds, nothing makes her happier than to find an “unadoptable” rescue that she matches with a job it loves and was meant to do.

She tries to spread the word about the problems associated with invasive mussels and why dogs are so valuable in protecting bodies of water by speaking to fishermen groups as well as junior college and secondary school students. At conferences about invasive species, she also provides information about how mussel detection dogs help control the spread of quagga and zebra mussels.

For more information see: https://www.musseldogs.info/  and http://www.dogswithjobs.info/

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