General Meeting: January 2024

It was another one of those Speakers that probably appeared as very dry and technical on paper – but Wow (or maybe bow-wow).

Ann explained that this was a comparatively new charity – about 50 years of experts recognising that dogs could detect bladder cancer in humans at around 50% of the time and that dogs could do that without training.

The charity was set up in 2008 and the Queen is their patron. The first patient – the dog would refuse to get out of the car by constantly nudging her chest where the cancer was. The Centre at Milton Keynes began at an old damp draughty building (no viewing space to spread the word and display the dogs' work).

It is all about the dogs' noses. Humans have 5,000 receptors in our noses. Dogs have 3 million! Approximately 5000 breast cancers and 5700 prostate cancers have been identified. The dogs' pick up a cancer odour. They are trained to check samples and sit down when they pick up signals.

Some guide dogs, who don't make the grade at that are re-trained as Detection Dogs. They must have the temperament and like people. It takes £29,000 to train a dog, They are looking, beyond cancer, at other issues – Bacterial, virus, malaria, etc. In trials dogs could detect Covid. There are lots of possibilities with dog's noses and smart phones.

Well done to Ann who did her best to overcome our dodgy microphone. From my position at the back of the room – it was noticeable that only three people left the hall before the end. For a bunch of old people like us, that was significant.

Eric Rennie