COCONUT CREEK, Fla. -- For decades dogs have been used to find drugs and even detect bombs. Now they're on the trail of chinese drywall.

On Tuesday, Local 10 went out on a home inspection Shadow, the first-ever Chinese drywall-sniffing dog.

About a year ago, his trainer, Jeremiah Comes, started training Shadow, a 2-year-old German Shepherd, to detect sulfur, the common chemical in Chinese drywall.

"It's called a passive indication. The dog sits and looks at me when he detects the smell he was trained on. In this case, he was trained specifically to detect sulfur," Comes told Local 10's Jonathan Vigliotti.

Comes works for a new Florida-based company called K-9 Detection Services. The company, which has offices in Miami and Sarasota, is a joint venture between a police dog training facility and a home inspection company.

While the drywall emits an egg-like odor, it often takes years to be strong enough for the human nose.

"Dog's noses can detect parts per billion . That's much stronger than any human," said Anthony Hemenez of K-9 Detection. He said that prior to dogs, the only way to detect Chinese drywall in homes was by cutting into the walls and then testing each sample.

"It was very costly and required a lot of destruction. I thought using a dog made much more sense," Hemenez said.

As many as 36,000 homes in Florida could have the imported drywall, which corrodes appliances and wiring.

Builders used it when American supplies ran out during the housing boom between 2004 and 2005. That's the same time Jacci Clary bought her condo at the Julia Garden Development in Coconut Creek.

"This was supposed to be my dream home, where I would spend the rest of my life," Clary said as she walked through her abandoned home. She said the odor got so strong she and her husband had to move out.

"I was having headaches and bloody noses. My cats had to go to the emergency room. We now rent a property down the road," she said.

One in three condos at the Julia Gardens development in Coconut Creek has Chinese drywall. Like Clary, most residents didn't know about it before they moved in.

K-9 Detection Services hopes Shadow prevents new home buyers from making the same mistake.

For more information on K-9 Detection Services, call 800-381-2055.