Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Dogs watch us all the time, in a way that no other animal does.

  • [Maureen]: He senses whenever we are going to go out,

  • and he knows before we even make a move.

  • [narrator]: They read our body language

  • and that's how they know we're going to take them for a walk

  • before we think we've made the decision ourselves.

  • It's this constant observation that can sometimes seem to give them a sixth sense.

  • Max is a red collie cross, normally full of energy and enthusiasm.

  • But in 2008, his owner, Maureen Burns, noticed that something was wrong.

  • [Maureen]: I thought at the time Max was fading. He was nine and a half.

  • and I was preparing myself for losing him, because of... he just wasn't happy.

  • Wouldn't come by me, wouldn't sit by me, wouldn't sit on my lap.

  • And the odd signs, he would come up, and touch my breast with his nose

  • and back off, so desperately unhappy, with such a sad look in his eyes.

  • [narrator]: Maureen had a small lump in her breast,

  • but her latest mammogram was clear, so she presumed all was OK.

  • Initially I thought, it's just another lumpy breast, as people get.

  • But then, I sort of connected it with the dog. With his odd behaviour.

  • And one day, I was looking in the mirror, in the bedroom here, and I looked across in the mirror at Max's eyes.

  • He was on the bed, as he is now, and I knew it was cancer.

  • [narrator]: Maureen went to her local hospital, but both a scan and a mammogram came back negative.

  • It took a surgical biopsy to finally detect the cancer.

  • Maureen had it removed, and the change in Max's behaviour was instant.

  • [Maureen]: The day I was picked up from the hospital, he was his old hyper self again.

  • Put his nose across my breast, to check where the operation had been, and he was wagging his tail and his eyes were happy.

  • It was unbelievable, the change in him. Instant.

  • I love Max so much, and I owe him so much.

  • Even before I go for a checkup now, I get him to check me out.

  • And if he's happy and wagging his tail, I'm happy, and I know I'm OK.

  • [narrator]: We now know that dogs like Max are smelling the tiny volatile chemicals given off by cancerous tumors.

  • Most dogs can do this, they just don't know that we're interested.

  • But with a little training, dogs can accurately pick out a cancerous patient from a selection of urine samples.

  • [sound of clicking] [woman]: Good girl.

  • [narrator]: They can even be taught to let diabetics like Steven know that his blood sugar levels are low, long before he can feel it,

  • and definitely before he passes out.

  • Dogs like Steven's are now transforming lives all over the country.

  • They're being trained to detect the early warning signals for severe allergic reactions, epileptic fits, and narcolepsy.

  • [lively music]

Dogs watch us all the time, in a way that no other animal does.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it