Novel collection method for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from dogs

Host derived chemical cues are an important aspect of arthropod attraction to potential hosts. Host cues that act over longer distances include CO2, heat, and water vapor, while cues such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) act over closer distances. Domestic dogs are important hosts for disease cycles that include dog heartworm disease vectored by mosquitoes, however the host VOCs utilized by vectors are not well known. Herein we present a novel method that sampled VOCs from a dog host. A Tenax TD stainless steel tube was held near a dog's fur and skin, which collected VOCs that were later desorbed and tentatively identified using a gas chromatograph-mass spectrospectrometer (GC-MS). Background air chemicals were subtracted from the dog sample, resulting in 182 differentiated compounds, a majority of which were identified by ionization fragmentation patterns. Four dogs were sampled and shared 41 of the identified chemicals. VOCs were representative of aliphatics, aromatics, aldehydes, alcohols and carboxylic acids. This chemical characterization method has the potential to identify both individuals and breeds of dogs in addition to other potential uses such as disease diagnosis.