The industry, which is worth $275 million and is concentrated in Leamington, outside Windsor, Ont., was devastated last year by a tiny invasive pest called the pepper weevil. Typically, that would involve releasing parasites to sicken and kill the weevils, or deploy other bugs that can catch and eat the weevils without harming the peppers. To train Chili, Murray used live weevils in small pill bottles with perforated caps. Murray then hid the weevils out of sight, so that finding a weevil got Chili her chew toy reward for a few minutes. The right dog for the jobAfter five weeks of training, Chili was able to sniff out a weevil inside a bell pepper.

Source: CBC News January 01, 2018 10:00 UTC