Dogs’ Detection of Symptomatic and Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 by Non-Working Dogs: Feasibility and Limits Under Controlled Laboratory Conditions

Dogs can detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs) associated with infectious diseases, but their ability to distinguish between symptomatic and asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections has not been fully established. In this exploratory proof-of-concept study with a limited number of dogs, eight non-working dogs (without experience in scent detection) began training with either symptomatic or asymptomatic Delta samples; seven reached the testing phase and were then evaluated on the alternate group to assess cross-generalization. Training initially used a yes/no protocol but was adapted to a line-up design after poor performance. When presented with novel Delta samples from the other category, dogs significantly discriminated them from controls, achieving a mean sensitivity of 71% and a specificity of 51%, with no difference between training groups. In contrast, performance dropped when dogs were tested with a small number of asymptomatic Omicron-positive samples from vaccinated individuals, with a mean sensitivity of 35% and a specificity of 55%. Dogs can thus generalize across symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases for the Delta variant; performance decreased for Omicron samples, likely due to altered VOC profiles in vaccinated individuals. While proof-of-concept feasibility was demonstrated with a line-up protocol for detecting asymptomatic scent, detection dogs should not currently be recommended for large-scale screening; the findings underscore the need for standardized protocols and variant-specific retraining.