Introduction:

Have you ever wondered what a dog can't do? Our furry K-9 friends have been with us through all o ur human times and generations. And from then they have continued to amaze us in so many life changing w ays. Man's best friend has always been right by our side overly pleasing and helping us human's in many wa ys. We’ve created a dog that can communicate with us and even read. Helping the blind to see or helping the disabled to move around is not even the beginning of it. But no it doesn't stop there as the years go on the sm ell capabilities in dogs has increased the more and more times progress. Now we have created dogs that can help us with our daily lives and task and they continue to over exceed and amaze us at that. Helping cops to sniff out drugs and even bombs and much more isn't even the gist of their capabilities. And i n creating these amazing pets one thing us as humans have noticed is the dogs amazing sense of smell and have learned to strengthen and improve that. But have we done it to the point were we have created a dog that can do the most life changing thing known in the world. What you say? Sniff out cancer an d not just cancer early signs of cancer that have been proven to be accurate every time and save peoples life's. Many claims have been made and proven th at some dog owners have experienced their dog sniff their stool, urine, breath, or body and show hints of distress of reaction to it. Concerning and tipping of their owners that their is something wrong with them and every time they go to the doctor a tumor has been found and taken care of because of there dogs early alert. How is this you ask, well there are many explanations. The three main things I intend to discuss and focus on in this paper are how dogs are abl e to sniff out cancer? Can only dogs smell cancer? And what is in stored for the future with this new found canine ability?

Findings:

After all the years of death, struggle, and pain with the deadly disease cancer and barely any break troughs’ in finding a cure. A new break through has been made something that was under our nose all this time our own pets. Reports have been made of owners detecting early signs of cancer thanks to their dogs. Numerous amounts of research has been done to test these reports and allegations and so far they have came out correct. Dogs are able to sniff out cancer by scent but scientists are trying to figure out how. Many think it's because cancer causes a certain smell in whom ever it possess cancer cell tum ors cause metabolic off gassing which could be the reason.( But then again it was found out that dogs are able to smell cancer on some one in many ways t hrough the breath, urine, stools and skin. One test that was shown was a study that was conducted of five dogs 3 Labrador retrievers and 2 Portuguese wate r dogs volunteered by their owners. The dogs were trained using clickers, praise, and food rewards to sit or lie down when they found the correct tube with c ancer. (Copley 2010, 6)The tubes were filled with the breath cancer patients and healthy controls. The dogs had a accuracy rate of 88% for breast cancer an d 99% for lung.(Copley 2010, 7) Also a another study showed that in a matter of weeks 5 ordinary house hold dogs with basic puppy training were able to a ccurately smell breath samples of breast and lung cancer.(Mc Culloch 2006, 5) Experts believe dogs can detect the biomarkers in tumors through breath, ski n, and feces being the reason they are able to detect cancer.(Leong 2011, 9) But it is said that dogs are able to smell the odor characteristics in different typ es of cancer, due to the fact that tumors give off organic compounds as they grow.( Reuters 2004, 3) Dogs have a truly amazing and strong scent capability t he age, gender, and breed of a dog seem to not have much of an affect over the accuracy of cancer scent detection whereas opposed to a breed that was br ed for scent like a blood hound. Though most of the breeds being used or that have been used in cancer scent detection research are Labradors, Newfound land’s, and Portuguese water dogs. But even as simple as a regular house dog can smell cancer with the right training of course to help the dogs determine and distinguish the scent. When it comes to other daily task that dogs perform like sniffing bombs and search and rescue they rely solely on scent. Out of all senses scent is a dog’s most dominant and strongest scent. A dog’s nose is actually so strong that they really can smell fear mainly in other dogs. Dogs can also smell scents that are up to 40 feet under ground, they can smell termites in wood, leaky gas pipes, human fingerprints that are weeks old, electricity, an d much more.(Jenkins 2010,5). So when it comes to smelling diseases such as cancer dogs are our best factor. Dog’s noses are able to smell more than on e scent at a time and still be able to distinguish which is which.  A lot of scientists are aiming to use dogs to find specific marks for cancer; the main thing tryin g to be found here is not dogs being able to detect cancer but mainly dogs detecting the scent of cancer and speciation of different types of cancer. And it is t rue about cancer having a smell; patients with cancer have shown to have traces of chemicals alkenes and benzene derivatives or traces of them in their br eath. (Kleiner 2006, 4) Dogs can easily with training can smell traces of prostate cancer by sniffing the urine. This means that recognition of variations of vol atile organic compounds could become a amazing screening method at detecting prostate cancer in it’s earliest signs.(Elsevier B.V 2010, 5)

 
    These accusations now lead to a new question that is, are dogs the only ones that can smell cancer? Researches have found that even many health pract itioners are able to smell cancer in patients breath with training as well.(Adams 2011, 4) It's not a surprise back in the olden days physicians would taste pati ent’s urine in order to diagnose numerous of diseases. But though the fact that cancer has a scent is clear the chemical compounds are not they are only kn own by dogs making scientist try and use dogs to find it. Though some humans can smell cancer, a dog’s nose is still 1,000 to 10,000 times more intense th an humans so dogs are still are best bet at detecting cancer in humans. (Jones 2006, 1) The dog’s nose works in many ways to capture scents and scent ID lays on the opinion that humans scent or odor profiles stay the same within time and dogs can still recognize the scent in a mixture of odors with training. (J ones 2006, 2) Actually because of anecdotal research cats can smell cancer to one reason being the fact that they have more scent receptors than most dog breeds.(Copley 2010, 10,11) One evidence being the report of a orange tabby cat having the need to jump into bed with his owner and moving his paw down the owners left side. Alarmed the cats owner went to the doctor for a check up and a large tumor was found and removed from his lung, which wouldn't e ven have been found for probably another six months.(Copley 2010, 12) Reports of cats and even rats have also been made of them being able to detect ot her disease's such as impending death and even tuberculosis.(Copley 2010, 13,14) Dogs as old as 8 years are still able to smell cancer with great accuracy so now leads to finding ways to incorporate these talents in dogs into the medical rooms as a sufficient and sole source for detecting cancer in humans. Do gs are able to detect cancer with the same accuracy if not better with any other cancer detecting machines used in medical practices all across the world.

But again what is the hold up why aren't doctors in a rush to bring cancer smelling trained dogs into medical rooms? What do scientist and researc hers have in stored for the future with this new doggy development. Future work is being used to determine which chemical compounds can identify cancer i n a sufficient way because that is what scientist and researchers seem to be focusing on mainly now with dog cancer detection.( McCulloch 2006, 5) Maybe the reason scientist aren't yet using dogs is because when the same test are ran a dog trying to detect samples of cancer when specificity and sensitivity are measured or tested the results are low in accuracy based on chance.( Gordon 2008, 5) Much research is still needed before dogs can be used in cancer sc reening, the limitation being some dogs are not able to recognize unusual scents from precancerous polyps.( Reinburg 2011, 20, 21) Medical scientist are tr ying to build an electronic device to replace dogs as cancer detectors at the same accuracy if not better( Adams 2011, 7) Another reason dogs are being del ayed in cancer screening is because it is not believed that dogs should be used in clinical practice because certain factors can influence and change their w ork making their accuracy different.( Gutierrez 2008, 7) Though the fact that dogs are able to sniff cancer is great news it can not be used or ever be used if t hat. Dogs being added to work in actually cancer screening as a job like being a K-9 cop like originally stated would cause problems due to the environmen t making dogs not as accurate as when being tested in research. Also it is still unknown if dogs are really finding cancer or sensing more general cancer sy mptoms (Kleiner 2006, 9) Yes dogs will maybe one day be used to detect cancer but it will be long from now before that could ever happen. Still dogs do ha ve a very high accuracy in detecting cancer one that a machine could probably never be made to do. What is questioned is why scientist rather make a mac hine that can try and live up to dogs high talents whereas opposed to the real thing. Making this machine could cause major expenses and cost when a dog would cause way less in comparison. Though it may be impractical and expensive to use dog as screening tools (Holm 2011, 14) but the amount of time it would take to accomplish all research in using dogs in cancer screening it would take even longer to build a machine to have the dogs cancer detection abil ity. But maybe scientist aren't thinking it all through dogs with their strong noses and man with their high brain function it could be a perfect combination and next step in the cure for cancer.( Leong 2011, 10) Dogs warning and alarming their owners about tumors are being related to dogs being trained to warn th eir owners of hypoglycemic attacks maybe it's not the scent ticking dogs off maybe it's the change in their owners. Among 138 dog owners surveyed 65 perc ent said their dog had reacted in some type of behavior at least one of their hypoglycemic attacks. Some other ways dog would warn their owners are whini ng, barking, licking, nuzzling, jumping on top of them or staring at them.( Pope 2009, 5) Since tumors cause a certain scent in humans the occurrence of a tu mor could mess with the owners original scent cause the dog to react in general. The explanation for a dogs motives are a mystery to the human world in th e end there is no sure way to tell why dogs do the things they do. But another con to medical practitioners not allowing dog to participate in cancer screenin g is if dogs perform with high accuracy at the other task they do such as sniffing out bombs, or being k-9 cops why is it such a problem. When it comes to snif fing out drugs on the borders of Mexico or sniffing out a bomb in a crowded and compacted place like New York dogs have no problem performing at their b est. It hasn't even been tested yet if dogs will be able to sniff out cancer with the same accuracy in a medical cancer screening facility as when researched s o why not give them the benefit of the doubt. This dilemma has caused many problems mainly with the fact that people think conventional medicine would ra ther build a machine to detect cancer than something built by nature.( Adam 2011, 7) Even programs have been made to train dogs too smell cancer and wit h much modification they are progressing more and more. We have created such an amazing dog breed today I don't see why with the right training why we can't create a dog one day that one day will smell cancer with 100% accuracy.

Conclusion:

In Conclusion Dogs noses have overly become developed to the point where smelling even a simple piece of dust has become far from impossible for them. But for know they will continue to stay as our friendly furry companions and not our partners in medical rooms across the country. Dog’s ability to pi ck up the scent of forming tumors in humans has become a very helpful step for future hopes in soon weakening cancers effects on the human population. S till much research is going to be needed until any further steps can be made in hopes of using dogs to help with cancer screening. And who knows maybe if dogs aren’t sufficient enough research can start on using other animals for cancer screening. For now even though dogs may not be able to physically help us in cancer screening they have helped us in taking steps to find the chemicals that cancer tumors create and much more. But to sum things up yes dogs c an smell cancer and no they are not the only ones, but much futuristic innovations are being made to use this research and facts to one day create the ultim ate tool in soon finding a cure and prevention of cancer.