November 20th 2023.
Claire Guest was getting ready to go for a walk with her three dogs when something strange happened. Daisy, her Labrador, stayed put in the car, staring intently at Claire before nudging her gently in the chest. Claire thought nothing of it and shooed Daisy out of the car, but something made her feel uneasy about the spot her beloved pet had been touching.
Sure enough, doctors soon confirmed the presence of an aggressive, deep-seated tumour that would have gone undetected until it was too late. Claire's life was saved thanks to Daisy's early warning.
At the time, the idea that a dog could detect illnesses was dismissed as mumbo-jumbo. But it was Daisy's remarkable detection work that day that proved dogs could recognize disease and its smell. Her owner Claire was also the co-founder of Medical Detection Dogs charity, which had been set up just months prior. This was the evidence they needed.
Claire had become convinced of dogs' amazing sense of smell while working at another charity. She and her colleague, Dr John Church, set up MDD and soon proved dogs could detect bladder cancer in humans, with Daisy being instrumental in that discovery. They also showed that dogs could identify many other diseases.
It's no surprise that canine sense of smell is so powerful, as they have around 350 million receptors in their noses compared to our measly five million. Daisy was even awarded a medal for her efforts in detecting cancer in Claire.
Since then, the charity has grown and now has over 80 assistance dogs helping people in the UK. However, training and research don't come cheap and last year the charity spent around £2 million, which is funded by fundraising. This is helped by players of People's Postcode Lottery who have raised a huge £1.7 million for the charity since 2018.
Claire is very thankful for the support. It's enabled them to make operational decisions and keep pushing forward in these difficult times. She can't say enough how much it means to have their backing.
Claire Guest, who lives in Milton Keynes, was getting ready for her daily walk with her three dogs when something unexpected happened. While two of the dogs jumped out of the car as usual, the third, Daisy the labrador, stayed put. She stared intently at Claire and then started to nudge her chest gently. Claire thought nothing of it at the time, but as they walked she couldn’t shake the feeling that Daisy had been trying to tell her something.
It soon became clear what Daisy had been trying to say. Claire went to the doctor and it was confirmed that she had a lump in her chest - cancer. The tumour was so deep-seated that it would have gone unnoticed until it was too late. Thanks to Daisy’s early warning, Claire was able to have surgery and radiotherapy to save her life.
At the time, the idea that dogs could detect illnesses was seen by many as ‘mumbo-jumbo’. But Daisy’s incredible work that day provided the evidence needed to convince the sceptics. It just so happened that Claire was the co-founder of Medical Detection Dogs, a charity that had been set up just months before to prove that very link.
Claire had become convinced of dogs’ amazing sense of smell years before while working at another charity, where a woman’s Dalmatian had detected her skin cancer. After meeting another convert, Dr John Church, they set up MDD and soon proved that dogs could detect bladder cancer. Daisy was integral in that discovery too.
Nowadays, MDD have around 80 assistance dogs helping people in the UK, and last year their training and research cost around £2 million. This is helped by players of People’s Postcode Lottery who have raised a huge £1.7 million for the charity since 2018. Claire is extremely grateful for their support and knows that without it, the charity wouldn’t have achieved what it has.
Thanks to Daisy’s incredible nose, the world finally knew the true power of the canine sense of smell. Not only can dogs detect all kinds of illnesses, they can even tell when you’ve just opened a bag of treats! Daisy received a medal for detecting Claire’s cancer, and she’ll always be remembered as the dog that started it all.
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