A Nose for Trouble

Dog lovers around the world can attest to what makes dogs so important. They provide comfort and companionship, but man’s best friend might play a bigger role in human health than we ever thought.

Studies show that dog ownership is linked to better overall cardiovascular health and increased physical activity. Now New York Times best-selling author and veteran journalist Maria Goodavage ’84 looks at the remarkable disease-detecting abilities of dogs in her new book, Doctor Dogs: How Our Best Friends Are Becoming Our Best Medicine, due out Oct. 1.

Goodavage, who lives in San Francisco with her family and their yellow Lab, Gus, has been writing about dogs for much of her career.

“My dad used to tell us about when he was a homesick young solider in World War II, and how the military dogs the troops occasionally had among them saved lives by day and saved souls at night,” Goodavage recalls. “He said they always seemed to instinctively know who needed them the most, and they’d try to cheer up those soldiers.

“So I grew up with a great admiration for the powers of dogs to transform lives, to uplift us in the darkest times. When I got the chance to start writing about the human-dog bond in the early 1990s, it was a natural fit.”

This is her fourth book about working dogs — Soldier Dogs (2012) and Top Dog (2014) examine the lives of canines on the front lines, while Secret Service Dogs (2016) focuses on the White House’s most crucial animals. Her past books have shown how the well-developed olfactory system of dogs can alert humans to outside threats. In Doctor Dogs, however, Goodavage discusses their potential to warn us about the dangers within.

Her latest book explores the cutting-edge science of how dogs are able to detect and alert to health crises like diabetic lows, impending seizures, cardiac issues, migraines and serious sleep disorders. She also delves into the world of dogs working with scientists to uncover the scents of myriad diseases, including several types of cancer and Parkinson’s, in addition to deadly pathogens like antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The human body emits volatile organic compounds (VOCs), some of which are associated with certain diseases and illnesses, such as diabetes or cancer. In our daily lives we are surrounded by VOCs, but our noses can’t distinguish ones that could be associated with illness.

But dogs have an advantage, Goodavage says. “Their sense of smell is exquisite. We have about 6 million olfactory receptors, but dogs have up to 300 million. They can sniff in stereo, and in parts per trillion — about a tablespoon of a substance in the equivalent of two Olympic-sized swimming pools. Their olfactory world is rich and vivid, much like our visual world.”

By using positive reinforcement, like loving praise and treats or toys, trainers have been able to teach dogs to detect and respond to medical emergencies. And using the same fun “paychecks,” scientists in research centers around the world are working with dogs — usually pet dogs who visit regularly — to detect diseases and pathogens.

“It seems that dogs, if trained well, are able to detect almost anything we ask them to,” Goodavage says. “For instance, we didn’t know until recently that something like the onset of seizures might come with its own unique smell.”

In her book, Goodavage also documents some of the unusual, but often lifesaving, behaviors of untrained pet dogs. For example, in one of the first documented cases, a dog named Baby Boo sniffed at and one day attacked a spot on her owner’s leg. The owner noticed a large bump after her pet’s outburst and later learned it was melanoma. The dog had helped detect the skin cancer before it spread.

In addition to physical illness, trained dogs are changing the lives of people with autism, survivors of traumatic experiences, and those with anxiety, schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. “They’re so in-tune with their person that they can sense when something is about to hit the fan,” Goodavage says. In addition to dog-detectable smells caused by illness and disease, “we’re learning now that there are scents to stress, panic and fear.”