If there is a bright side to Lake Powell being contaminated with quagga mussels, it’s that it can serve as a place where dogs can get trained to sniff out quagga mussels. Which is exactly what happened last week.
Last week, a group of dog handlers from Alberta, Canada came to Lake Powell for six days and trained four dogs how to find quagga mussels.
Most of Alberta’s lakes are still free of quagga mussels, and they want to keep it that way, said Cindy Sawchuck, lead of watercraft inspectors and conservation canine programs for Alberta.
But in recent years, several lakes in northern Montana have become infested with quagga mussels and Montana boaters bringing their boats to recreate on Alberta waters threaten to bring quagga mussels with them, said Sawchuck.
By training dogs to sniff out quagga mussels, they and their handlers can be stationed at checkpoints and there detect any quagga mussels that may be present in or on the boats and prevent them from entering a pristine lake.
But before that can happen, the dogs have to learn how to sniff out quagga mussels that may be lurking on a boat, and for that they need a location that has quagga mussels.

The dogs and their handlers arrived in Wahweap on Sunday evening and got to work Monday morning.
It started by teaching the dogs exactly what they’re looking for. The first step in this process is accomplished by placing some quagga mussels in an empty box. The box is placed in a line with other empty boxes. The dogs stick their noses into each box and look for what’s inside. When they arrive at the box with the quagga mussels, they’re rewarded. This begins to establish for the dog what he or she is looking for. As the process advances, the quagga mussels may be hidden in a warehouse and dog hunts for them until it finds them. The dogs are taught to sit down when they find what it is they’re looking for as a signal to their handlers that they’ve detected something.
After the dogs have learned what they’re looking for and have had success finding it in a controlled environment, they are then moved outside where things are less controlled, where there are more smells and more possible distractions. For this group that meant patrolling the shores around Wahweap Bay.   
The ultimate goal for all this training will be two fold when they return to Canada. These dogs, along with others, will be stationed at checkpoints and where their services will used to detect any quagga mussels on incoming boats. They’ll also be used to patrol along the shorelines of lakes.
“If a shoreline is starting to get infested, the dogs will detect it far sooner than humans ever could,” said Sawchuck. “The hope is that we’ll detect them soon enough to then prevent them from spreading very far.”
When looking for quagga-sniffing dogs, the trainers went to shelters and looked for animals that were active, engaged, energetic, who wanted to play and had a deep desire to please their master.
A penchant for play may sound like a counter-productive quality in a work dog but playful dogs work best for this type of work, said Sawchuck.
Detection dogs — whether they’re detecting drugs, quagga mussels or anything else — work on a reward system and the reward is usually play time with their handler.
“To us, the dogs are working, but if we do it right the dogs just think they’re playing a game all day,” said Sawchuck. “We want them to think their detection time is the most fun they’ll ever have.”
Less than one in 1,000 dogs make good detection dogs, said Sawchuck. A detection dog has to find joy in detection all day long, day after day. Most dogs can’t do that, she said.
Sawchuck believes the week spent at Lake Powell training the dogs was a great success and believes the dogs will return to Canada ready to work.