If you’ve never seen the TV show House, it centers on a crabby doctor named Gregory House, who has exceptional diagnostic skills. Of course, he’s wrong about 3 times and nearly kills every patient before he stumbles on to the right diagnosis, but I digress. Anyways, according to a story on MSNBC.com, many dogs combine their keen sense of smell with their intuition and daily observations of us to be able to tell when something is wrong.
For example, Morgan, a Yorkie, kept jumping at guardian Pamela Plante’s achy leg until Pamela checked it out in the mirror and found out it was red all the way from ankle to knee. Her doctor diagnosed sepsis, which could have killed her if left untreated.
Riker, an Australian Shepherd, was able to detect a melanoma in his guardian’s father in time for it to be removed.
Other dogs can catch changes in blood sugar, impending seizures, lung cancer, and breast cancer. The Pine Street foundation in San Anselmo, California, is now training dogs to sniff out ovarian cancer, one of the hardest cancers for doctors to diagnose.
See? You thought you were saving your dog’s life when you adopted him from a shelter, but it turns out he may save yours one day!
Has your dog done anything extraordinary? Tell us about it in our forums.
Until next time,
Good day, and good dog!
I have heard a little bit about this before but it is still mind boggling that a dog can also help you with your health. Maybe one of my 6 Yorkies will someday alert us to something that needs tended to. I knew I loved them for being them but I never knew that they might save my life someday.
I have heard about a lot of Dogs that can sense Melanomas. Incredible. Amazing that they can be trained to detect Cancers and other Medical conditions.
All mine can detect is the presence of Food!