Cancer sniffing dogs to be trialled in Britain

Britain's National Health Service has approved trials of dogs trained to detect cancer.

The NHS gave the go-head to charity Medical Detection Dogs after an initial study proved that dogs can detect the odour of prostate cancer in urine with a 93% effectiveness.

The charity was founded by Dr Claire Guest, a psychologist who has been involved in training dogs for tasks involving scent for over 20 years. A year after she founded Medical Detection Dogs, Dr Guest's own dog, Daisy, alerted her to a cancerous tumor in her left breast. Later, Daisy was to be awarded a Blue Cross medal for her work in detecting cancer.

"The dogs absolutely love this work," Dr Guest told the Good Morning Britain program, "because it's so natural for them. Dogs love sniffing about and the dogs that we use are the dogs that enjoy the find and fetch games. So they're dogs that would hunt for a toy day after day and enjoy it. The fact is that they're sniffing for something slightly different, but to them it's simply a game."