Pup joins medical detection setup
SHE is cute and cuddly but her biggest asset is her nose.
The Invercargill Licensing Trust (ILT) has teamed up with Flagstaff Kennels and cancer detection company K9 Medical Detection to gift 8weekold black Labrador Skye, to train as a dog tester for the early noninvasive detection of cancer.
ILT has provided $75,000 towards the dog and the ILT Foundation has provided $75,000 towards nurse and transport costs.
Skye left Invercargill yesterday for Mosgiel, where the K9MD facility is based at Invermay.
K9MD founder Pauline Blomfield said it was hoped the puppy would go through all the training and become the ninth dog in the cancer detection team. The dogs smell odours from urine samples. She said there was a lot of training put in and a lot of time taken from the beginning of the programme before a canine candidate could become a fully trained and qualified dog. Skye, who was born in the South and was named only yesterday, is the halfsister of Hero, who is a bowel cancer detector dog.
Mrs Blomfield said the olfactory system of a canine was highly undervalued.
It was too early to tell how Skye would work out, or how long it would take, but a huge amount of work had to be carried out. It was also too soon to say what cancer Skye might detect.
The company had three dogs detecting bowel cancer, three detecting prostate cancer and two detecting ovarian cancer.