Dogs Feel Cancer: This or That

It’s no secret that dogs have incredibly sensitive noses. Some scientists believe that dogs may have a sense of smell that is more than 10 times stronger than a human, according to PBS. Such a powerful sense of smell of dogs has allowed a person to train them to find missing persons, detect drugs and explosives, and much more. But can dogs sense human illness?

There have long been legends about the ability of dogs to detect cancer even before the necessary examinations are carried out. What the scientific data says about this is in the article.

Does a dog really detect cancer in humans?

Back in 1989, the journal Live Science wrote about reports and stories of cancer-detecting dogs. In 2015, The Baltimore Sun published an article about the dog Heidi, a shepherd-Labrador mix who smelled cancer in her owner’s lungs. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote about the husky Sierra, who discovered ovarian cancer in her owner and tried three times to warn her about it. And in September 2019, the American Kennel Club published a review of Doctor Dogs, a book about dogs that help diagnose a variety of diseases, including cancer.

According to Medical News Today, research shows that trained dogs can detect various types of tumors in humans, even at an early stage. “Like many other diseases, cancer leaves certain traces, or odor signatures, in the human body and its secretions. Cancer-affected cells produce and secrete these signatures.” With proper training, dogs can smell oncology in a person’s skin, breath, sweat, and waste and warn of illness.

Some four-legged friends can indeed detect cancer, but the training component will be the key factor here. The In Situ Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to dog training for early detection of cancer in humans: any of these combinations. Periodically, we test dogs of other breeds, and it turns out that some of them can also detect cancer very well. The main component is the temperament and energy of the dog.

What Do Dogs Do When They Smell Cancer?

There are different stories about how dogs react to the smell of cancer. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, when Sierra the Husky first discovered ovarian cancer in her owner, she showed intense curiosity and then ran away. “She buried her nose in my lower abdomen and sniffed it so vigorously that I thought I had spilled something on my clothes. Then she did it again, and then again. After the third time, Sierra left and hid. And I’m not exaggerating when I say “hid”!”

The Baltimore Sun wrote that Heidi “began to poke her snout into her mistress’s chest and paw her excitedly” when she sensed the presence of cancer cells in her lungs.

These stories suggest that there is no single way that dogs will react to the smell of cancer, as most of their reactions are based on individual temperament and training method. The only thing in common in all these stories is that dogs feel people’s illnesses. A clear change in the normal behavior of the animal prompted the owners: something was wrong. 

You should not see some kind of medical diagnosis for any changes in the behavior of the dog. However, consistently repeated unusual behavior should be observed. If a visit to the veterinarian shows that the dog is healthy, but the strange behavior continues, the owner may also want to schedule a visit to the doctor.

Can dogs sense human illness? More often than not, science answers this question in the affirmative. And this is not so strange – after all, it has long been known that dogs are able to read people in an absolutely incredible way. Their keen senses tell them when a person is sad or hurt, and they often go out of their way to warn us of danger in a friendly way. And this is just another amazing demonstration of the strong bond between humans and their best four-legged friends.