Root Diseases and Timber Dogs

Root disease is very difficult to locate and study as the infection process takes place under ground where insect feeding is not visible. Disease and therefore pine decline is normally not apparent until you see above-ground symptoms in the crown and by then, it is often too late to save the tree. However, using detection dogs may give us an advantage. A detection dog is a canine trained to work using its senses to detect substances such as explosives, illegal drugs, or blood. In the past decade, the use of detection dogs has expanded from these more traditional targets to a number of ecological targets.