Cancer can be a silent and deadly killer.
But dozens of pet owners have revealed how their dogs were able to detect different forms of the disease before doctors to help save their lives, using their powerful sense of smell.
It is estimated that a dog’s sense of smell is between 10,000 and 100,000 times stronger than that of humans, meaning that some breeds can detect a substance at a concentration of one billionth of a teaspoon.
Their supreme sense of smell has been harnessed to detect a variety of things, from detecting drugs and explosives to tracking criminals.
Alert diabetic dogs can even detect blood changes that occur when blood sugar levels get too low or too high.
in a Quora In a thread posing the question “Does cancer smell?”, more than 100 commenters told stories of their dogs sniffing out the disease in both humans and other canine companions.
Kim Reed, a retired American Airlines accountant from North Carolina, said her dog helped her detect her breast cancer.
She wrote: ‘I had a three month old lab puppy that was going to be trained as my service dog.
“When I hugged her, she insisted on looking to the right and would push and scratch me just below the chest.”
Dozens of pet owners have revealed how their dogs and cats detected cancer using their powerful sense of smell
Mrs Reed continued: ‘On examination I noticed a lump, but not necessarily in the breast, but just below it. I was scheduled for a routine mammogram, but I called my doctor and asked if I could move it up.
‘Turns out it was cancer but it wouldn’t have been detected on a routine mammogram. “It was at the very edge of the breast tissue and had to be specifically addressed.”
Ms Reed said that if her dog had not seen the lump under her breast, it could have “grown and spread”.
She says her surgeon referred to her four-legged friend as her “wonderful puppy” and the dog remains her faithful companion more than three years later.
Jan Heaton said she had “always heard that animals have a sense about cancer” but had “never experienced it” until recently.
While walking her dog in the park, a Labrador became interested in her, sat next to her and “periodically poked” her right hand.
Heaton assumed the dog was just seeking attention, but the owner revealed it had a special ability to “detect cancer in people.”
In response, Heaton revealed to the Labrador’s owner that his skin cancer had returned after 10 months in remission and that he needed to undergo surgery.
The owner asked where the cancer was because the Labrador seemed concentrated in his right arm, and Ms. Heaton confirmed that the cancer was in the upper part of his right arm.
Similarly, Heather Gunnerson of Colorado revealed that her mother’s golden retriever helped her detect a rare, non-cancerous tumor in her stomach.
He said he was always wary of his mother’s dog, as he had been rescued from a “negligent and abusive” home and “had problems.”
But more than 20 years ago, when she visited her mother, she said she was shocked when the dog approached her and wouldn’t leave her alone and began “constantly poking his nose” into her stomach.
She recalled: ‘He would put the snoot in my stomach and sniff it, sniff it and sniff it, repeat.
“I had been experiencing a lot of pain and discomfort, but I thought it was due to ruptured ovarian cysts, which I am prone to.”
In a Quora thread posing the question “Does cancer smell?”, more than 100 commenters offered their opinions, with the majority answering “yes.”
However, two days later, Ms Gunnerson went to a doctor’s appointment, where she had ultrasounds and found a “very worrying mass” and had surgery the next morning.
He said doctors found a rare, non-cancerous tumor in the lining of his abdomen.
After the mass was removed, Gunnerson said her mother’s dog was no longer interested in her.
For this reason, he concludes: “I think the dog could perfectly smell the tumor (or something related to it) and its absence once it was removed.”
Unusually, Cris Smith said that when her mother was dying of cancer, she began having “hostile encounters” with dogs, which ranged from growling to biting.
In addition to cancer, Smith believes canines can sniff out other diseases.
Now, after being diagnosed with kidney failure, Smith says her own dogs have started “acting strangely” around her.
She explains: At first they didn’t want to take the treats from my hand, which they had done eagerly for almost 10 years, until they growled and walked away from me.
‘One day one of them bit me and broke my skin (there had been incidents of breaking in the recent past) but they still continued to treat my husband as they always had, with love and enthusiasm.
‘My heart was broken by this. Then one day the dog next door lunged at me and bit me. I had played with him before and he had always been friendly to me.
“In retrospect, I think it was because the dogs could smell or otherwise feel the disease.”
In addition to dogs, some commentators have revealed how they witnessed cats tapping into their sixth sense.
Backing up Quora’s claims, Cancer Council points out that many studies have confirmed that animals can detect cancer in the human body.
A 2021 study conducted in Germany and published in the British Journal of Cancer (BJC) looked at whether sniffer dogs could detect lung cancer from breath and urine samples.
After a one-year training program In a double-blind clinical trial, the dog was able to detect lung cancer using breath and urine samples with an overall detection rate of 98%.
The researchers said the results show how dogs could therefore be a “simple, non-invasive tool” used to detect lung cancer.
In addition to dogs, the Cancer Council says a wide variety of animals, including rodents, insects and intestinal worms, have been “used for this purpose and all have demonstrated their ability to detect cancer.”
But “currently, the matter remains a matter of investigation rather than procedure.”