Dog Detects Cancer in Owner's Body Before Medical Scans, Saves Life

[Alex Co]

Dog Detects Cancer in Owner's Body Before Medical Scans, Saves Life

A 9-year old collie cross named Max smelled the cancer inside her owner's body before any medical scans could detect it, which saved the owner's life.

It's been said countless times that a dog is a man's best friend, but did you know they can also smell and detect if we're seriously ill, too? In the video by BBC Earth called "Secret Life of Dogs," a 9-year old collie cross named Max became depressed when he started detecting the cancer in his owner, Maureen Burns. According to the video, Burns had a lump in her chest, but her last mammogram didn't show anything, so she didn't think much of it. However, Max, who normally is full of life, began acting strangely. Max would "touch Maureen's breast with her nose, and back off so desperately unhappy with such a sad look in his eyes," claims the owner.

At first, Maureen thought the dog was "fading," since he was 9-years old, but she linked Max's behavior to the mammogram so she decided to get a scan and mammogram again, which turned out negative once more. It wasn't until Maureen underwent a surgical biopsy was the cancer detected. Once the surgery was over, Maureen claims the change in Max was instantaneous and the day she was picked up from the hospital, Max was his "old, hyper-self again."

The BBC Earth report adds, "dogs watch us all the time and read our body language like a sixth sense. They also smell our bodies for changes. Max smelt cancer in Maureen before any medical scans could pick it up. Dogs do this naturally and can be trained to pick up on tiny volatile chemicals given off by cancerous tumors. They can even be taught to alert diabetics to low blood sugar levels."

Dogs are truly amazing creatures, but who would've thought they can help us medically, too? Chalk another point up as to why it's a good idea to have dogs for pets.

Source: Gizmodo [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0UK6kkS0_M#t=138]


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[Random Argument Man]

Amazing, but I've seen this 30 times on my Facebook wall since January.

Ok, I'll give you a big bone for your article. It still made my day. I have two papers due tomorrow and I was not in the mood. Thank you for that.

 

[RicoADF]

I'm sure I've heard of a similar case years ago, still quite interesting and shows how much more in tune with the world other animals are than us. Seriously we may have the technology but theres things animals pick up which humans are clueless to.

 

[Raggedstar]

There have been a few cases of dogs detecting cancer. Not sure how many after several scannings showing up negative, but it's something that happens. I think one of the Dobermans from Westminster this year did it too. Scientists are trying to find what the dogs are picking up on as well as training dogs to sniff patients and try to pick up on cancer cells. Any non-invasive way to detect cancer should be an area of interest (especially if they can find it early). Dogs have been trained to detect for a whole bunch of things, such as glucose levels, epileptic seizures, sleep apnea, and panic attacks.

Hooray for doggies!

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm sure I've heard of a similar case years ago, still quite interesting and shows how much more in tune with the world other animals are than us. Seriously we may have the technology but theres things animals pick up which humans are clueless to.

It seems more like confirmation bias, the same way someone might get an MRI based on a "feeling" doesn't mean they have ESP.

Yes, animals do pick up some things, because we can't replicate biology. But this story? Eh. Seems like the doggy equivalent of claiming Nostradamus predicted 9-11.

 

[Exterminas]

Are there any studies about this kind of phenomena yet? Or is this kind of story - which keeps creeping up on a regular basis - something that isn't explained yet?

Obviously conducting a proper study about that would be difficult, since you'd need dog owners of specific breeds, who have cancer, but who don't know that they have cancer, in order to avoid the Clever Hans Effect. Recruiting those can't exactly be done by craigslist of while maintaining a certain level of medical ethics.

 

[Amaror]

It seems more like confirmation bias, the same way someone might get an MRI based on a "feeling" doesn't mean they have ESP.

Yes, animals do pick up some things, because we can't replicate biology. But this story? Eh. Seems like the doggy equivalent of claiming Nostradamus predicted 9-11.

What about this story is unbelievable? Dogs having an amazing sense of smell is common knowledge, so i don't see anything wrong with this story.
Maybe you took it a bit too literal. They weren't saying that the dog knew she had cancer. He smelled the cancer and didn't like the smell. Since he smelled it on his owner, he guessed that his owner wasn't well and that made him sad.
It just allerted his owner enough so that they found the cancer she had.
That doesn't mean or suggest that your safe from cancer as long as your dogs happy. The smell of cancer will smell different to other dogs so they might not find the smell allarming or they might just not make the connection between the owners change of smell and the owners health.
They can be trained to do it, as shown in the end, which might help detect some forms of cancer, but it's hardly a revolution.

 

[Skeleon]

In a similar vein, the dog Cliff has been trained to detect Clostridium difficile by smell:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/dr-dog-how-beagle-cliff-can-sniff-c-diff-video-8413281.html
Dog's ability to sniff things out, especially when properly trained, is pretty awesome.

 

[Something Amyss]

What about this story is unbelievable?

Please point to where I said "this story is unbelievable."

The problem is that it doesn't matter if a story is believable, it doesn't automatically follow that a believable story is necessarily true. I mean, to many people that Nostradamus claim is believable. So what?

Now, if you're done putting words in my mouth....

There are pretty much no studies on a dog's ability to smell cancer in this fashion, no matter how you want to phrase it. While a dog's sense of smell is incredible and there are actually applications where we can apply it to cancer detection, neither the method or the "warning" holds as a sign the dog actually detected anything wrong. Sure, it's great that she survived because she checked it out, but there's nothing specific to this story that elevates it beyond a hunch.

And to that end, there are millions of people dying yearly who get cancer that isn't detected early enough. Hearing a survival story is nice, but are all the other dogs out there just dicks to their owners? Why isn't this a well-established phenomena? Even if you argue that the owners might not notice, why hasn't there developed an after-the-fact series of anecdotes that "you know, my dog got all weird around my tumour and started poking it." Even if it was only anecdotal evidence, there should be a trail of similar occurrences. A trail that would then need to be evaluated, but still a trail. Every time I've read about this story, it comes off as "post hoc, ergo propter hoc."

It's a great story, it's just bad science.

Are there any studies about this kind of phenomena yet? Or is this kind of story - which keeps creeping up on a regular basis - something that isn't explained yet?

There have been double-blind studies involving certain types of cancer and detection of cancer cells by scent. Of course, such dogs actually need to be trained to do so, and the circumstances are different, so there's no indication a dog would ordinarily go "this lump smells funny" and react to it without external training.

One of the other things they note is that animals can taught to detect low blood sugar, which is also true. The key element here is that they're taught to do so. Neither is something one sees spontaneously. OR maybe dogs just really are jerks.

 

[CogDiss]

Perhaps the dog can detect changes in its owners excrement or sweat caused by the disease

What about this story is unbelievable?

Please point to where I said "this story is unbelievable."

The problem is that it doesn't matter if a story is believable, it doesn't automatically follow that a believable story is necessarily true. I mean, to many people that Nostradamus claim is believable. So what?

Now, if you're done putting words in my mouth....

There are pretty much no studies on a dog's ability to smell cancer in this fashion, no matter how you want to phrase it. While a dog's sense of smell is incredible and there are actually applications where we can apply it to cancer detection, neither the method or the "warning" holds as a sign the dog actually detected anything wrong. Sure, it's great that she survived because she checked it out, but there's nothing specific to this story that elevates it beyond a hunch.

And to that end, there are millions of people dying yearly who get cancer that isn't detected early enough. Hearing a survival story is nice, but are all the other dogs out there just dicks to their owners? Why isn't this a well-established phenomena? Even if you argue that the owners might not notice, why hasn't there developed an after-the-fact series of anecdotes that "you know, my dog got all weird around my tumour and started poking it." Even if it was only anecdotal evidence, there should be a trail of similar occurrences. A trail that would then need to be evaluated, but still a trail. Every time I've read about this story, it comes off as "post hoc, ergo propter hoc."

It's a great story, it's just bad science.

Are there any studies about this kind of phenomena yet? Or is this kind of story - which keeps creeping up on a regular basis - something that isn't explained yet?

There have been double-blind studies involving certain types of cancer and detection of cancer cells by scent. Of course, such dogs actually need to be trained to do so, and the circumstances are different, so there's no indication a dog would ordinarily go "this lump smells funny" and react to it without external training.

One of the other things they note is that animals can taught to detect low blood sugar, which is also true. The key element here is that they're taught to do so. Neither is something one sees spontaneously. OR maybe dogs just really are jerks.

Perhaps the dog can detect changes in its owners excrement or sweat caused by the disease. If it is true though, they should work on breeding the dogs with this ability.

 

[idarkphoenixi]

They also had that story of the nursing home cat who knew which old person was going to die next and would lie next to them. It was pretty much a feline grim reaper, telling you that only had hours left to live. Equal parts terrifying and fascinating.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7129952/Cat-predicts-50-deaths-in-RI-nursing-home.html

If it's true that most dogs can smell cancer and only don't tell us because they don't realise we care, then I would hope that it can soon become standard procedure to have some in every hospital in the world. Even hospitals with low funding should be able to at least have one or two because I imagine the costs of keeping a dog are relatively low.
I have a family history of cancer and I almost lost my mother from it so this is very important to me.

 

[Pigeon_Grenade]

More proof Dogs are Awesome, i mean Cats are pretty cool too, but i always found dogs more freindly towards me

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

What about this story is unbelievable?

Please point to where I said "this story is unbelievable."

The problem is that it doesn't matter if a story is believable, it doesn't automatically follow that a believable story is necessarily true. I mean, to many people that Nostradamus claim is believable. So what?

Now, if you're done putting words in my mouth....

There are pretty much no studies on a dog's ability to smell cancer in this fashion, no matter how you want to phrase it. While a dog's sense of smell is incredible and there are actually applications where we can apply it to cancer detection, neither the method or the "warning" holds as a sign the dog actually detected anything wrong. Sure, it's great that she survived because she checked it out, but there's nothing specific to this story that elevates it beyond a hunch.

And to that end, there are millions of people dying yearly who get cancer that isn't detected early enough. Hearing a survival story is nice, but are all the other dogs out there just dicks to their owners? Why isn't this a well-established phenomena? Even if you argue that the owners might not notice, why hasn't there developed an after-the-fact series of anecdotes that "you know, my dog got all weird around my tumour and started poking it." Even if it was only anecdotal evidence, there should be a trail of similar occurrences. A trail that would then need to be evaluated, but still a trail. Every time I've read about this story, it comes off as "post hoc, ergo propter hoc."

It's a great story, it's just bad science.

Are there any studies about this kind of phenomena yet? Or is this kind of story - which keeps creeping up on a regular basis - something that isn't explained yet?

There have been double-blind studies involving certain types of cancer and detection of cancer cells by scent. Of course, such dogs actually need to be trained to do so, and the circumstances are different, so there's no indication a dog would ordinarily go "this lump smells funny" and react to it without external training.

One of the other things they note is that animals can taught to detect low blood sugar, which is also true. The key element here is that they're taught to do so. Neither is something one sees spontaneously. OR maybe dogs just really are jerks.

This guy, this guy gets it. Not sure why people have gotten so uppity about a healthy degree of skepticism. It's cool and all, but I'd want to see something more conclusive- we shouldn't be so eager to believe something just because we want to.

 

[Amaror]

There are pretty much no studies on a dog's ability to smell cancer in this fashion, no matter how you want to phrase it. While a dog's sense of smell is incredible and there are actually applications where we can apply it to cancer detection, neither the method or the "warning" holds as a sign the dog actually detected anything wrong. Sure, it's great that she survived because she checked it out, but there's nothing specific to this story that elevates it beyond a hunch.

And to that end, there are millions of people dying yearly who get cancer that isn't detected early enough. Hearing a survival story is nice, but are all the other dogs out there just dicks to their owners? Why isn't this a well-established phenomena? Even if you argue that the owners might not notice, why hasn't there developed an after-the-fact series of anecdotes that "you know, my dog got all weird around my tumour and started poking it." Even if it was only anecdotal evidence, there should be a trail of similar occurrences. A trail that would then need to be evaluated, but still a trail. Every time I've read about this story, it comes off as "post hoc, ergo propter hoc."

I did explain that didn't you read further than the unbelievable part?
Things smell different for other individuums. Some dogs, like max in the video, might not like the smell of cancer. Others might also not like it but they might not mind the smell. Or they just might not make the connection between their owner smelling funny and there actually being something wrong with their owner.
But i aggree partially. It is just a story, just a mere coincidence that the dog reacted in a way to the smell, that allarmed the dogs owner and saved her live in the end.
But the cool thing about the story is not the story itself but the thing in the end, were they train dogs to do medical stuff. Cancer isn't the main point there but cool stuff like the dog allarming diabetics of low blood sugar.
Which is really really cool.
One of my best friends is a diabetic and he has been for pretty much his whole life, but even he can sometimes miss the feeling of his blood sugar.

 

[Grimh]

Pff whatever, today my cat scratched me a lot, ate from my food and wiped her ass on my floor.

Let's see you "miracle dog" do that lady!

 

[Something Amyss]

Perhaps the dog can detect changes in its owners excrement or sweat caused by the disease.

Perhaps the dog actually has a sixth sense.

Seriously, though, I don't know what you're chiming in on here. I've already explained that a dog can detect cancer, and explained the issues with this story as it fits. There's no explanation necessary as to how a dog might detect cancer. What would need to be explained is why this certain dog would be so aggressive when others are not. For example, why my aunt's five dogs didn't seem arsed to warn her about her ovarian cancer so it went undetected until it almost killed her and she had to have a good chunk of her reproductive system (and other tissue) removed. To the second part of your comment, they don't need to breed them but train them. Dogs don't need to be specially bred, though some breeds may better be able to detect cancer. What they do need is training, and that's part of the issue here.

This guy, this guy gets it. Not sure why people have gotten so uppity about a healthy degree of skepticism. It's cool and all, but I'd want to see something more conclusive- we shouldn't be so eager to believe something just because we want to.

Merci.

I did explain that didn't you read further than the unbelievable part?

I very clearly addressed points beyond that, so you should know that if you read what I wrote. But you didn't read my first post, and it looks like you're not reading that one. I don't know why I'm even responding again, but....

Things smell different for other individuums. Some dogs, like max in the video, might not like the smell of cancer.

Random speculation to justify it after the fact. I addressed this.

Cancer isn't the main point there but cool stuff like the dog allarming diabetics of low blood sugar.
Which is really really cool.

Cancer detection is really cool. And it's legit. It's a real thing, and practical applications of it will be lifesaving, so I think it is a part of the point. I think a part of the point also comes down directly to the fact that while those cancer-detecting dogs will actually be life savers, Max is being equated to one with no evidence that anything out of the ordinary actually occurred.

Tending to diabetes is also cool, but cancer is a major deal as well.

At the same time, I still think it's important if this isn't really a miracle case. It's good she didn't die of undetected cancer. It's good she got it checked out. But then, there's the distinct possibility that she survived due to nothing more than random chance. That this dog could not detect cancer and was not offering a warning. There are so many things potentially wrong with that chain of events.

 

[Dango]

It's about time Lassie was real.

 

[antipunt]

I was all giddy and happy and shtuff, but then I read the comments in this thread, and now I'm sad. What a buzzkill

 

[Padwolf]

It' good to see such a story! Dogs are amazing animals and they can detect changes in their owners. It'a amazing that a dog could detect cancer. I find it amazing when my dogs can detect I'm ill and then give me cuddles to comfort me, I also find it amazing how when I have a bad bleeding scratch my dog can lick it and it will heal within days without leaving a minor scar behind. I miss my dogs so much Hopefully going to see them again in a week or two, I'm so damn excited!

 

[Undomesticated Equine]

Another argument of the superiority of the dog over the cat.