Animals identifying disease
Evidence may be mostly anecdotal in nature, but it appears that animals not only make good companions but also make good nurses and doctors. A recent example that’s been in the news is the case of Jerry Douthett.
An amputation, terrier style
Jerry Douthett gained international fame when his 1-year-old Jack Russell terrier, Kiko, performed what might have been “lifesaving” surgery on Douthett by chewing off most of his big toe as Douthett slept.
Douthett said his toe had been festering and had an odor, and he was worried about seeking medical help, so he drank some beers and margaritas and fell asleep on the bed. When he woke up, the bed was covered in blood and Kiko was right by his side. "The toe was gone," said Douthett. "He ate it. I mean, he must have eaten it because we couldn't find it anywhere else in the house. I look down, there's blood all over, and my toe is gone," Douthett said in the article "Dog eats Rockford man's big toe, saves his life."
The article continues, “Kiko apparently sensed an infection festering in his master's right big toe—and chewed most of it off after Douthett passed out in a drunken stupor.
“A trip to the hospital confirmed Douthett's digit required amputation, and Kiko is being heralded by his owner for helping him realize he has been suffering from type 2 diabetes. Douthett had a dangerously high blood sugar level of 560 when admitted—many times the recommended 80 to 120.”
Sensing sepsis
Ask Pamela Plante about her dog, Morgan, a 7-pound Yorkshire terrier, and she’ll call her a true lifesaver. Morgan kept jumping on Plante’s leg, according to the article "Doggie ‘doctors’ diagnose their owners’ ills," causing Plante to look at her leg in the mirror. Instantly she saw that her leg was deeply infected. “She was diagnosed with sepsis and spent a week in the hospital recovering from the infection.”
The article reports, “In the past few years, studies have shown that dogs can sniff out both early- and late-stage lung and breast cancers. The Pine Street Foundation, a nonprofit cancer education and research organization, in San Anselmo, Calif., is even training dogs to recognize ovarian cancer.”
Sniffing out breast and lung cancer
The article "Diagnostic accuracy of canine scent detection of lung and breast cancers in exhaled breath" states, "A dog’s nose, considered by both dog trainers and chemists alike to be one of the world’s most powerful olfactory sensor, was the 'medical device' used in this research. In a study of 86 people (55 with lung cancer and 31 with breast cancer), five professionally trained scent dogs accurately distinguished between breath samples from diseased patients and those from 83 healthy controls. The dogs’ ability to correctly identify or rule out lung and breast cancer, at both early and late stages, was around 90 percent.”
Melanoma detection
"Doggie ‘doctors’ diagnose their owners’ ills" also reports the story of Riker, a 9-year-old Australian Shepherd who poked and sniffed at his owner’s father’s chest repeatedly until he finally had his chest examined. Riker sensed the melanoma that was quietly spreading under the man's skin.
It’s not just dogs that have sensed or smelled illness or cancer in their loved ones; cats have shown the same ability, states the article.
Tomcat TLC
Ardis Matson of South Dakota gives credit to her cat, Tuffy, for keeping her mother well enough to live on her own even though she suffered from a serious illness.
“My mother was elderly and had insulin-dependent diabetes,” Matson says. “Often, her blood sugar would go dangerously low during the night, and if left unchecked, it could have caused her to go into a coma and die. Tuffy always slept with her, and when her blood sugar started slipping really low during the night, he would nudge her and walk across her body and keep aggravating her until she would get up and take glucose to make her blood sugar levels rise. When she was in control again, Tuffy would go back to sleep.”
