Yes, dogs can definitely smell cancer. Ansgar alerted to mine after my doctors office blew my symptoms off twice. But Ansgar was persistent, & was behaving in a way she had only done on the tracking field. She would sniff my abdomen & sit down in front of me & stare at me intently. It was difficult to make her move away. She was absolutely insistent. After two weeks of this I made an appointment with a new doctor, got a biopsy, which came back without 1 normal cell--all cancer. She totally saved my life. My cancer was an aggressive, rare form of uterine cancer, not usually found until it has spread. Because of Ansgar, mine was found early, at stage 2b. So I have a fighting chance. I'm not out of the woods yet, but she gave me a much better chance at overcoming it!

I wrote University of Penns working dogs department, as they are training dogs to detect ovarian cancer, & they sent me a very nice response, I'll try to post it. And Sunshine & I talked a little after my diagnosis...Galaxy was a superb ambassador for our breed, a TV star, & a marvelous companion. He is missed.

jackie harris

Ms. Harris,

Thank you so much for sharing this incredible story! Your German Shepherd sounds like an amazing companion. We are constantly blown away by our dogs' abilities, and it sounds like you have had quite a remarkable experience, as well. I will be sure to pass along your email to the staff at the Working Dog Center. Thank you again for reaching out to us!
Sincerely,
Ashley 
  Ashley Berke 
Director of Communications 
University of Pennsylvania 
School of Veterinary Medicine 
3800 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104 
215.898.1475 
http://www.vet.upenn.edu/   I'm sure these folks aren't scamming anyone. They are trying to isolate the molecule that the dogs are actually smelling, to see if it can be detected in the blood. Patients donate their tumor tissues that have been surgically removed for the dogs to use in their detection. They have a >90% success rate! jackie harris

sorry, double post, jh

And my girls dam detected my low blood sugars, & her granddam detected her owners thyroid cancer.....my daughter has a littermate that seems to know intuitively when they are ill, although he is a male...this litter was the very last of these lines...😢. They also carried some health problems of their own...so weren't bred again, sadly.

jackie harris

Hey, Jackie, remember this? 

OMG! CBS news in Philly just had a clip on cancer smelling dogs, including a GSD that looked just like Ansgar, smelling the same type of cancer I have!!! I'm gonna have to find a clip, 'cause my oncologist thought I was crazy when I told him my DOG knew something was wrong!!!! jackie harris

sorry to be sceptical but has anyone got anything more than personal anecdotes.

we are educated people. this area is absolutely ripe for exploitation of desperate people and exploitation of dogs.

 

as an example the therapy/service dog industry has become synonymous with scam and was once a high level and nobel industry. pet finding dogs are another rather scam type deal imo.

 

any say double blind studies by qualified people in recognised research institutions?

 

not knocking anyone's personal experiences. a lot of these things start on the internet and become scams, this is not an area to be making loose claims.

 

 

You can look at my post on the previous page & look up the U of Penns' website to see the research they are doing with their dogs. No scam or anecdotal evidence garnered there, they ARE doing double blind studies & their findings are very encouraging for ovarian cancer victims. Ovarian cancer has few symptoms until it is in its advanced stages, so this will be lifesaving!

 

And yes SS, I sure do remember that!!! 😊 Ansgar is at my feet right now! 

My very smart goof ball!

jackie harris

with respect kalibeck i really want you to be right, the link in fact goes here;

"Page Not Found

 

We’re sorry, but the page that you are looking cannot be found right now. It might have been removed, had its name changed or be temporarily unavailable. The following pages and utilities might help you find what you are looking for:

• Penn Vet Homepage

 

If you reached this page by clicking a link, please send us an email to report the broken link."

 

the response you have is from a communications guy;

Ashley Berke 
Director of Communications 

he does not confirm anything you have claimed, he is most likely not even qualified to assess your claims.

these guys write thousands of letters similar to yours when people make endless claims they have invented perpetual motion machines and miracle cures for everything etc, i have seen standard templates for them.

i went to the home page of the broken link, have not found any specific reserach yet, i will spend some time looking tho, i just didn't look hard yet.

again i really, really want you to be right, FYI in a former life before i semi-retired to a shack in the hills and raised hounds my training and work was looking after machines worth millions of dollars at the cutting edge of science specifically for diagnostics and therapy of cancer + prparation of some hideous isotopes for bracchy-therapy. worse job in the world on a technical and emotional level.

so i really, really, really  want you to be right.

 

 

 

 

 

Well I got to use some of your isotopes when I had HD brachytherapy. I will try to find the site. There were several documentaries done lauding the success they were having training their dogs in bio detection. The goal, however, was to isolate what the dogs were smelling in the samples in the hope of being able to come up with a blood or tissue marker, as the current marker, CA-125 has serious flaws & too many false negatives.

jackie harris

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/08/07/health-dogs-undergo-training-to-detect-deadly-form-of-cancer/#.VS2rWHp0HGt.mailto
 
Here's a link to the news story that first caught my attention...with the dog that looked like Ansgar!