These clever dogs are the first in the UK to be trained to sniff out bowel cancer.
The Medical Detection Dogs charity began a groundbreaking study in 2024 to teach seven pooches how to detect tumors simply by smelling urine in pots.
Following the first part of their training, the cocker spaniels, Labradors, and retriever are showing real signs of success.
SWNS news reported the results have proven to researchers that they can sniff out bowel cancer in urine. But in a few months they will face a new stage of double blind tests, before the results are confirmed 100%.
The charity hopes the dogs will deliver an accurate and more sensitive early-stage bowel cancer detection method quicker than humans, which could improve healthier outcomes and help save lives.
All the bowel cancer dogs and the other pups at Medical Detection Dogs are trained to sniff out Parkinson’s disease, pseudomonas, COVID-19, Addison’s disease, and heart conditions like postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).
“The charity has been investigating the odor of diseases for 15 years,” said Gemma Butlin, head of communications at the charity in Milton Keynes, 50 miles north-west of London. “The bowel cancer study is new to us, but detection is not.”
The training program involved early scent training, learning the “game” in which they had to detect a disease in sample pots of urine. The sample sizes got smaller, and the dogs eventually needed to learn to sniff the disease out in samples from patients with other conditions.
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Sample pots from Hull University Teaching Hospitals are placed on interactive metal stands designed by The Open University, which feed through to a computer. Every sniff is logged, and the dogs tell humans with a signal—like standing still—if they detect cancer.
“When they sniff the odor, they give us a signal such as sitting or standing to indicate the smell.
“If they identify a positive sample, which takes less than 10 seconds, they’ll get lots of treats, cuddles, and affection.”
Gemma said that each pup also spends time bonding with their trainer, having “lots of fun” in the process.
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“The first and most important thing is that we need to prove that they can smell cancer from the samples. At the moment, we’ve got them smelling 1ml of urine per pot—which, as you can imagine, is a minimal amount.
Many of the samples will also have other diseases the dogs will need to sniff through. The same method has already been used to detect prostate cancer and bladder cancer from these urine samples.
The dogs joined the charity when they were eight weeks old and came from breeders or rescue organizations—but now the champs are having their own pups.
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“We’ve just welcomed our second-ever litter of puppies from our dogs, so we’re hoping to source more of them ourselves.”
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