Dogs and Cancer

I found out this morning that today is National Puppy Day!

It's kind of one of those made-up "holidays" that I keep reading about on Facebook, but I don't care. I love dogs.

A couple of things to read if you're a dog lover, too, and interested in cancer (which I know you are -- why else would you be reading this blog?).

The first one is from a couple of days ago -- a dog was able to detect her owner's skin cancer.

There's a long history of dogs who have been able to detect cancer. They are certainly not as accurate as a CAT scan (ha!), but they could be a good first step.

The first cancer-sniffing dog was a Standard Schnauzer named George. My own dog is also a Standard Schnauzer. Her named is Strudel, because she's very sweet and a little nutty. Unfortunately, she is not at all good at sniffing out cancer. She's 11 now, and getting crankier as she gets older.

I'd love to think we can teach her some new tricks, but cancer detection is probably not going to be one of them, even though she is very smart:

(You can tell she's smart because she wears glasses.)

The other article I want to share was published yesterday -- "How Dogs Are Helping Us Understand Cancer." Turns out we can learn a lot about human cancer by studying dog cancer. That link will take you to an article that includes a video documentary on the topic. Fascinating stuff.

(I have a doggy friend going through chemo now, which makes me sad. But dogs rarely seem to get sad, which I take as an inspiration.)

So hug any puppies (whether they are 11 weeks or 11years) that you know today.

And if anyone wanted to share pics of their dogs, I would be totally OK with that.