A Langdon woman will soon be one of the first people to receive certification for training dogs how to sniff out cancer cells; and it all started with Ecko.
Ecko, a Labrador Retriever, has been trained by her owner Liz Dick for several disciplines of dog sports and has been competing in agility, flyball and dock diving since 2012.
However, two and a half years ago, Ecko had to take a maternity break from the high action world she was used to.
“I wanted to keep her (Ecko) active and focused so I searched for a more sedate activity. We took a few courses on scent detection with several instructors. In no time at all Ecko understood that she needed to alert to only one specific scent. (an essential oil) She loved the game and I then started researching different jobs that a dog’s nose could do.”
It wasn’t until recently though, when Liz’s mother died from cancer, that Liz decided she needed to bring her knowledge of canine scent detection to the next level.
“Research shows that dogs can detect cancerous cells far sooner than machines can. (studies have been done since the early 90’s) We need far more awareness and many more certified trainers in Canada to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to benefit from the earliest possible cancer detection.”
Dogs are able to smell in parts per trillion, making the dog’s sense of smell 100,000 times more accurate than a human. A dog smells everything in layers. As an example, you may smell cookies, but a dog smells eggs, flour, sugar, butter, etc. that make up the cookies. They have the ability to layer scent which is why they can detect your footprints on the floor even though many other people have walked there too.
People sometimes think that their dog is psychic because they have to ability to “sense” when their owner is happy or sad or anxious or afraid. But the dog is
actually smelling tiny amounts of adrenaline that the person is emitting, thus enabling the dog to “smell” our emotions.
Liz will travel to California in February to complete the certification course with the InSitu Foundation. (dogsdetectcancer.org)
Once she returns to Alberta, she will be training her two Labradors (Ecko and Ecko’s daughter, Dana) to detect cancer cells. However, in order to ensure a high rate of success, she will be selecting another 4 to 6 dogs who will also be specially trained, thus forming a multi-dog team of cancer detection sniffers.
To date, canines have been trained successfully to detect the very early stages of prostate, breast, upper thoracic, melanoma, lung, ovarian and bladder cancers, with an accuracy rate of 98%. This is far superior than any machine out there. And EARLY cancer detection is key to saving lives.
Everyone has been affected by cancer in some way, either battling the disease themselves or knowing someone who has. Liz has found an opportunity to be part of the solution by using her passion and experience as a dog trainer, and to bring awareness to Alberta and Canada of this additional arsenal available to combat this disease.
“If, through all the months and months of training, and even all the expense this research will incur, if just ONE person’s life could be saved because I made the effort to train the dogs to specifically detect cancer cells; it will all be worth it.”
