METALLICA and TOOL are among the artists who have have recruited dogs specially trained to sniff for traces of COVID-19 in members of their crew, entourage or anyone else who gets backstage, Rolling Stone reported.
METALLICA hired an Ohio-based firm, Bio Detection K9, for its fall shows in Fort Lauderdale and Atlanta and also at the band’s 40th anniversary gigs in San Francisco last month.
John Peets of Q Prime, the management company that represents METALLICA, says: “So far, knock on wood, the dogs have been knocking it out of the park. We haven’t had a dog miss anybody.”
Bio Detection K9 dogs are trained specifically for COVID-19 and its various strains, and do not respond to seasonal flus and colds and they are not used to search large crowds, just manageable groups.
“We don’t search whole stadiums; that is not what we are there for,” Shawn Reed, the director of training and operations for Bio Detection K9, said in an interview with SWVA Today. “I don’t take a dog and search a crowd of 60,000 people.”