Dogs Detecting Illness

I have to admit I get nervous every time my dogs sniff at my right knee. The reason? I keep hearing that dogs are really good at detecting cancer or other illnesses by sniffing. After all, they have a sense of smell reported to be 10,000 times or maybe its 100,000 times more sensitive than a humans. So why wouldn't they be able to smell tumors? Or blood clots?

Well my dogs keep sniffing at my right knee so there must be something wrong. Anyway, Pamela Plante lived out my worst nightmare when her little dog kept sniffing at her leg and Pamela discovered she had sepsis! When I read this, I kept thinking, hey maybe my weimaraner does know I have a blood clot in my right knee!

Originally used to detect skin cancers, apparently dogs can sense breast and lung cancer as well. Dogs are even able to detect when blood sugar levels drop in diabetics. So if your dog starts sniffing a particular area of the body, if you haven't spilled peanut butter take a trip to the doctor!