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The Nose Knows: Cancer-Sniffing Dogs to the Rescue!

Written by: Nicole Zalat

September 17, 2014

Dogs get their noses into everything. They can sniff out where you’ve hidden the treats, they know you’ve been petting the dog next door (you cheater), and they greet your guests by shoving their noses into their privates.

“Why hello, Friend of Hooman’s crotch. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Image via Gajitz
Image via Gajitz

Dogs even have jobs as master sniffers: Illegal drugs, explosives, missing humans – if it has a smell, dogs can be trained to hone in on it more accurately than other detection methods. And now we’re training dogs to find cancer.

Image via NWA Homepage
Image via NWA Homepage

But don’t run out to a dog park for your next cancer screening. “We don’t ever anticipate our dogs walking through a clinic,” says veterinarian Dr. Cindy Otto of the Penn Vet Working Dog Center, where dogs like McBaine the Springer Spaniel are trained to detect cancer using their highly sensitive noses.

Image via New York Times
Image via New York Times

Trainers have the talented pups sniff two vials of fluid, one cancerous and one benign. “Everything we do is about positive reinforcement,” Dr. Otto said. “Sniff the right odor, earn a toy or treat. It’s all one big game,” said Dr. Otto.

Image via Penn Vet Working Dog Center
Image via Penn Vet Working Dog Center

We still don’t know what it is exactly that these dogs are picking up when they smell cancer. The goal is to pinpoint the chemical marker the dogs have been smelling, which will then help scientists create a handy sensor used for detecting cancer present in the body. And since early detection of cancer is one of the most important parts of successful treatment, figuring this out will be a huge breakthrough in the field.

h/t to New York Times

Featured image via Dogster

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Written by: Nicole Zalat

September 17, 2014

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