While you might know that scientists have discovered that dogs can detect cancer with their nose, you probably didn’t know that the dog who got the entire school of thought going was a Border Collie mix.
Some dogs seem to have the capacity to sniff out the presence of cancer in humans. This startling discovery was first reported in the prestigious medical journal Lancet, in April 1989, by Doctors Hywel Williams and Andres Pembroke.
A female patient sought advice about a mole on her thigh. Her concern was aroused by her dog, a cross between a Border Collie and a Doberman, who often spent several minutes sniffing at a particular mole, even though her pants (the dog paid no attention to any other moles on her body). She decided to see the doctors after the dog tried to bite off the mole while she was wearing shorts.
Analysis showed that the mole was actually a malignant melanoma. Williams and Pembroke noted, “The dog may have saved her owner’s life by forcing her to seek medical advice while the mole was still at a thin (noninvasive) stage.” They guessed that the dog’s sense of smell was the true life-saver here and that malignant tumors, “with their aberrant protein synthesis, emit unique odors, which though undetectable to man, are easily detected by dogs.”
– How Dogs Think, Stanley Coren
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