A dog's sense of smell is around a thousand times more sensitive than a human's, which enables them to detect many things far more easily than any other animal, including infections. And a British charity called Medical Detection Dogs works with the powerful scenting abilities of dogs.
The wide range of diseases that the humanitarian organisation trained its canines to detect includes everything from nut allergies to changes in blood glucose (like diabetes), malaria, many cancers, and heart ailments. COVID-19 was most recently included on the list.
The Medical Detection Dogs officially surpassed the record for the most medical disorders discovered by dogs (the organisation) in February 2022, with a total of 28 ailments since the charity was started in 2008, thanks to the great training that has helped this organisation.
That result landed them a spot in Guinness World Records in 2023.
According to the charity, "Medical Detection Dogs save lives using their amazing sense of smell-their noses know the odour of disease and are faster, more accurate, and less intrusive than any other biosensors on the planet."
"What we have learned over many centuries is that different diseases have unique odours. We now know that dogs, with their incredible noses, can be trained to find these diseases," says Dr Claire Guest, Co-Founder, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of Medical Detection Dogs.
"We can perhaps smell a spoonful of sugar in a cup of tea, a dog can smell a teaspoon of sugar in the equivalent of two Olympic swimming pools," he added.
