Dog has been man’s best friend from whence time begun. However, the recent discovery that your best friend can diagnose cancer and even explain some of our deep routed phobias is incredible as it is outrageous. But, this thesis raises some questions as well namely :-
a)Has the dog been around man and even befriended man because he felt sorry for the man and his illnesses?
b)Has the dog been trying to tell the man kind that the mankind is on self destructive path and tried to help him?
c)Have we gone full circle in evolution without really having made progress at all?
Dogs have been involved in crime detection as well as finding missing people in dangerous zones such as an earth quake. Recent cases are a case in point. Clearly, dog has been instrumental in our safety in more ways than just these. There is no question that dog possesses superior smelling abilities.
How does he smell and then translate his/her findings into a language?
Detection of life threatening conditions is carried out and analysed by smell. Dog takes in a dose of human breath and makes his/her diagnosis from that sample. The following case explains both detection of serious condition and how the dog forced the owner to make a visit to his physician:-
“ in 1989 there was a publication in the medical journal the Lancet this article was about a dog that frantically licked and even bit a mole on her thigh. The dog had detected a malignant skin melanoma; an early stage of skin cancer “.
There were other similar reports following that publication and in a sense it was that information or combination thereof which prompted further research.
Recent experiments to prove that dog did indeed have superior smelling and detection abilities centred on two specific cases:-
Case 1. Seven urine samples were placed against a wall. The dog; cocker spaniel, was taken along to sniff these samples. As the dog walked along he stopped and then sat down and focussed on one sample. This sample belonged to a patient and dog helped diagnosed that this patient had cancer of the bladder.
Case 2. The focus of this experiment was on dog’s ability to detect and then translate known smells. The equipment included some specially designed boxes. These boxes will then be used to inject minute quantities of smells. The dog will then be exposed to that smell prior to entering the controlled environment. The dog will then be taken into the controlled environment and he will then take a stiff at each box. For the purposed of this illustration, the dog smelt banana before entering the room. Once in the room, he will then be taken alongside each of these boxes. He will sniff each box and sit down when he came across the same smell to which he was exposed outside.
In conclusion, this article is based on known facts or information which has been proven in a laboratory environment. Therefore, there is merit both in the theory and the end results. It would appear that there are wide spread applications terrorism is just one example where dogs could provide a valuable insight. Dog has prolonged the life of one owner by detecting his cancer. It will be interesting to find out whether dogs have actually healed their owners of less serious medical conditions without forcing them to go to their doctor?.
Nazir says be nice to your dog and live longer. For infomation visit, Dog Pal at http://www.thedogs4u.com and http://www.d4dogbreeds.com and get to know your pal better.
