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Pet
'detectives' could save lives
11:44 AM CST on Friday, April 2, 2004
According to a recent survey, having a cat or dog makes people happier
and teaches children responsibility. Now, researchers are studying how our four-legged friends not only
improve our lives—but can actually save them. Rusty, Maggie and Ginger are medical detectives in training. Dr. Larry
Myers and his team are teaching the canines to sniff out suspicious
odors. One day, these dogs could be sniffing out skin cancer. "Just because something is low-tech doesn't mean that it is not
as good as--if not better than—a number of the high-tech methods,"
explained Myers, a veterinary researcher at Auburn University. A dog's sense of smell is actually about 100,000 times more sensitive
than a human's. Veterinary researchers envision a time when dogs work
side-by-side with doctors. "People simply can go into a dermatologist's office, and the
dog can check them over, instead of waiting for them to notice an abnormally
shaped or colored mole," Myers said. Psychobiologist Jim Walker agrees that dogs could eventually be a
valuable tool. He's training them to detect prostate cancer. "Any disease where there is any reason to think there are chemical
cues coming from the body, it makes sense to investigate if the dog
can help the diagnosis," Walker said. "The aim is to put together
the dog with current conventional diagnosis and simply get much better."
Siobahn Fromm and Joanie Bussard run Amazing Tails, a non-profit dog
training center in Pennsylvania. "We've had dogs that alert to
blood sugar, blood pressure, migraine headaches, heart attacks,"
Fromm said. And dogs aren't the only animals with a nose for medicine. Diabetes patient Susi Johnson says her cat, Ichabod, knows when her
blood sugar is low. "He'll keep nudging me until I get up to go
check it, and sure enough—it's low." Johnson lives alone, so if her blood sugar falls when she's asleep,
Ichabod's watchful nose could save her life. "He would deliberately come over and whap at my face or actually
nip at my leg until I got out of bed," Johnson said. "They constantly surprise us with what they can come up with,
dog trainer Bussard said. "The anticipation and the true love and
devotion that they have to taking care of their person... it's really
phenomenal." Harnessing those instincts could be what it takes to save lives. No animal is guaranteed to alert to a medical condition. They can
be trained, but ultimately it's up to the animal to decide whether it
will respond.
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