Does Cancer Have an Odor? Pet Owners Tell Amazing Stories of Dogs Sniffing Out Disease and Saving Their Lives

Daily Mail ^ | 18 November 2024 | Sadie Whitelocks

[nickcarraway]

Cancer can be a silent deadly killer.

But dozens of pet owners have revealed how their dogs were able to detect different forms of the disease before the doctors did to help save their lives, using their powerful sense of smell.

It's estimated a dog's sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times more powerful than humans, meaning 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 range of things, from detecting drugs and explosives to tracking down criminals.

Diabetic alert dogs can even sniff out changes in the blood that occur when blood sugars becomes too low or too high.

In a Quora thread posing the question 'does cancer have an odor?', more than 100 commenters told stories of their dogs sniffing out the disease in both humans and other canine companions.

Kim Reed, a retired accountant at American Airlines from North Carolina, said her dog helped 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 would hold her she insisted on facing to the right and would nudge and scratch right under my breast.'

Ms Reed continued: 'Upon examination I noticed a lump but not necessarily in the breast, just below it. I was scheduled for a routine mammogram but I called my doctor and asked about moving it up.

'It turns out that it was cancer but would not have been found in a routine mammogram. It was at the very edge of the breast tissue and it had to be specifically addressed.'

Ms Reed said had her dog not spotted the lump below her breast, it might have 'grown and spread.'

[metmom]

Mr mm had that and after his surgery, it was gone.

It’s a very peculiar and funky odor. I will recognize it if the cancer returns.

Nothing so far. The surgery got it all.

[Openurmind]

Thank you for sharing that. Everyone thought I was full of crap. Yes, “funky” is a good word for it. I first noticed it sleeping with her. She would lift her arm and it would hit strong. We started to do what we could to prevent it but it would never go away.

Before she passed when it finally consumed her it would fill the whole room with that same smell. It is unique for sure. Good to hear all is good with Mr MM and that you are checking for that smell regularly. Should help catch it right away like you say.

[LambSlave]

It’s not just a more sensitive sense of smell, it is a much more developed olfactory cortex. Our eyes aren’t much more sensitive than a dogs, but our extensive visual cortex processes that information and a simple glance tells us an entire story about what is happening, beyond their understanding. Dogs do the same thing with smell, but instead of just rods and cones, they have an astronomical number of building blocks to work with.