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Could dogs be the future of fighting the coronavirus pandemic?

PITTSBURGH — A local organization is helping in the fight against the coronavirus by training dogs to sniff out COVID-19.

Members of the newly formed KOVID-19 Detection Task Force believe it could be the future of treating the pandemic and protecting others.

The dogs set to be trained went through an audition process to see which dogs and owners could potentially help. Trainers in Youngwood and Imperial watched closely as they worked to choose a team of dogs for the task force.

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Those dogs will be part of a proposed team that will sniff out COVID-19, potentially identifying who has the deadly virus.

Rodney Little, owner of Youngwood Top Dog Services and commander of the KOVID-19 Detection Task Force, said it's very early in the process, but he believes the dogs have an incomparable gift that has already been able to identify cancer and diabetes in humans.

“What we know already is dogs can detect a lot. The VOCS, the smell receptors they have in their nose, are 10,000 times more accurate than a human,” Little said.

The organization is working to secure additional funding to continue building its task force and hoping to get approval to further train the dogs.