Puppy smelled my lung cancer
Alabrador pup saved her owner’s life when she smelled his lung cancer. Two-year-old Sassy kept resting her head on David Eyre’s chest.
Realising the dog was trying to tell him something, David contacted his doctor. Tests showed he had cancer in his right lung, exactly where Sassy had been putting her head.
David, 75, who has had radiotherapy treatment, said: “I will for ever be grateful to Sassy. She saved my life.”
He was training Sassy to be a guide dog for the blind when he began suffering blackouts. He had just recovered from leukaemia, so he assumed they were a side-effect of his earlier treatment.
But Sassy’s unusual behaviour convinced David and wife Hazel something was wrong. David said: “As part of her training Sassy had been taught not to jump up, so I knew something wasn’t right. I’m so glad I got it checked out.
“There was a dark spot on the X-ray right where Sassy had placed her head.”
When David had his treatment at Weston Park Hospital, Sheffield, Sassy went with him. Hazel, 76, who lives with David in Barnsley, South Yorks, said: “She would put her chin on the knee of two or three different people. They all said how lovely she was. I didn’t dare say it was because she knew they were poorly.”
Sassy was the seventh dog David and Hazel had trained, but sadly a stressrelated skin condition meant she could not be a guide.
ODOUR
Claire Guest, boss of Medical Detection Dogs, is at the forefront of research into how dogs can help identify cancer through their sense of smell.
She said: “David’s story adds to evidence that dogs are able to detect cancer. We train dogs to detect the odour of human disease, such as cancer, in urine and swab samples.
“Our dogs have a reliability as high as 93 per cent. We are now working with the NHS on trials to show that harnessing dogs’ sense of smell could save thousands of lives.”