A fully trained dog can search a room for bedbugs in just a couple of minutes. (CBC)

A P.E.I. dog trainer is teaching his dogs to hunt for bedbugs in the hopes of selling his services to hotels with a growing concern about the bloodsucking pests.

As international travel has increased, and preventive use of chemical pesticides has decreased, bedbugs are making a comeback in North America. Hotel chains have developed special programs for dealing with them, and websites have launched to warn travellers about what hotels to avoid. Dog trainers in North America are now beginning to work with their dogs to help out.

"Because of the big outbreak and epidemic that's in North America now, I thought it was just as wise to start training dogs for bedbug detection," said Duke Ferguson of K9 Unleashed Potential.

Bedbugs are well developed to hide from humans. About the size of apple seeds, they can hide in mattresses, electrical outlets or pretty well anywhere they can fit. They don't carry disease, but an infestation can still be very unpleasant.

Duke Ferguson hopes to have his dogs ready to go in February. (CBC)

"They will basically suck the blood out of you for three to five minutes until they're full. And then they waddle back and go into their little place again," said David Herring of Braemar Pest Control in Charlottetown.

It can take up to 20 minutes for a human to search a small hotel room. A fully trained dog can search the same room, with a higher rate of accuracy, in about a tenth of that time.

But it takes about 600 hours to fully train a dog. Ferguson keeps his bedbugs in small containers capped with a bedsheet to allow the scent to escape, but not the bugs. He begins the training by hiding them in various places around his shop in Stratford, and when the dogs find them, he rewards them with a toy.

The training then proceeds to an actual room offered up by a friendly hotel owner.

Walter Van Beek of Best Western in Charlottetown is intrigued by the possibility of using the dogs.

"I think we would certainly be interested to see if it proves to be accurate and efficient, to take the next step and see if we can work with someone like that to improve our current policies," said Van Beek.

Ferguson hopes to have three of his dogs up to snuff by February.