Pioneering project trains dogs to sniff out illnessess

Golden retriever Zane is one of a kind: he works as a trained guide dog but he’s also able to alert his diabetes-suffering owner when her blood-sugar levels are low.

“I feel like I am living a second life,” says Dubliner Paula Dorrington (53), describing how Zane, the only dog in Ireland to have both guide-dog and medical-alert status, has changed her life beyond measure.

She has not had to go to hospital for a type 1 diabetes-related complaint since her five-year-old guide dog was trained to sense when her blood-sugars were low.

But more than that, Zane’s arrival has given Paula a new sense of hope and independence.

Her husband Gus is now free to work a full week, and the couple are planning their first holiday in years.

Paula Dorrington and her guide and medical alert dog Zane at her home in Drimnagh, Dublin.

“I have never had a connection with a dog like I have with him,” she tells Feelgood.

“I can be in one room and Zane can be in the garden and then he will suddenly appear with the [glucometer] kit and I think, ‘How does he know?’, but he does.

“He puts it on my lap and if I pay no attention to him, he will get very bossy. He will sit and put his two paws on the kit as if to say, ‘Pay attention to me’.”

Zane’s gift is a life-saving discovery for blind people with diabetes, she says.

“What he has done for me is amazing but the thought that he could pave the way for so many more dogs like him is just mind-blowing I’m so proud of him.”

Having dogs in her life is nothing new for Paula.

She lost her sight gradually from the age of nine.

Colours were the first to go, then shapes, she says, but, at first, her disability didn’t hold her back.

She’s a double Paralympian — she competed in the 100m sprint and javelin in Korea in 1988 and again in Barcelona in 1992 — and a European Games silver medallist.

She also climbed to Everest base camp in the 1990s and later walked 100km along the Great Wall of China.

In recent years, however, type 1 diabetes started to seriously limit her life.

“I could have a low blood-sugar at any stage, but my body couldn’t tell itself when it was happening,” she says, explaining that her inability to control her blood-sugar levels left her more reliant on her husband.

Then something unusual happened. She noticed that her guide dog Zane seemed to be able to pick up the odour associated with her changes in blood-sugar levels.

When they were low, he would put his head in her lap.

With the help of the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind, Paula contacted British charity Medical Detection Dogs (MDD), to see if that potential could be developed.

After an assessment, the hard business of training began and soon Zane was predicting blood-sugar lows with over 80% accuracy.

CEO of Medical Detection Dogs Claire Guest said the charity was delighted to work on this pioneering project with the Irish Guide Dogs.

Zane is the charity’s first dual guide and medical-alert dog and one of 75 dogs who have been trained to help adults and children living with conditions including type 1 diabetes, Addison’s disease and nut allergies.

Claire Guest, a scientist and animal behaviourist, knows better than most how our relationships with dogs have the potential to save lives.

Dr Claire Guest with her dog Daisy who nudged her breast, prompting her to seek medical help. She was found to have a difficult-to-diagnose breast cancer.

She says her own dog Daisy, a red fox labrador, nudged her breast insistently one day, prompting her to seek medical help.

She subsequently discovered that she had a deep and difficult-to-diagnose breast cancer.

“She had saved my life simply by smelling my cancer,” says Guest.

Many others had similar anecdotal stories but the idea that dogs might be able to consistently detect malignant tumours on the basis of smell was first put forward in the Lancet in 1989.

Five years after that, the British Medical Journal published the results of the first piece of experimental evidence to show that dogs can detect cancer by smell more successfully than would be expected by chance alone.

Guest herself was involved in that study and it gave her the impetus to set up Medical Detection Dogs in 2008.

In 2011, she was awarded an honorary doctorate for her pioneering work training dogs to identify human disease by odour.

“Within a few years, I predict and hope that diagnosis using dogs will be a factor used routinely in a range of illnesses,” she says.

However, training a dog is a costly business.

It costs more than £11,200 (€13,000) to train a medical-alert assistance dog and, with the exception of Zane, that service receives no government funding and is available only in Britain.

Here, the Irish Guide Dogs will continue to support its successful pilot partnership with the British charity.

Simon Osburne, guide dog mobility instructor at Irish Guide Dogs, told Feelgood: “I have been blown away by what I have seen. The life-changing benefit of a guide dog and a diabetes-alert dog is truly incredible.”

Osburne worked with trainer Lydia Swanson in Britain over a number of months to hone Zane’s skills.

“Zane is a very intuitive dog and Paula is an amazing, positive can-do person. The programme has made a huge difference to Paula’s life. It has given her a huge level of confidence and freed up her life,” he says.

This is the only project of its type in Ireland, but the Irish Guide Dogs is reviewing the work to see if there is a demand among its other clients.

As it is, the association has up to 180 working guide dogs and some 400 dogs working to help children with autism.

“For now,” says Simon Osburne, “we are just dipping our toes in the water, but it’s very exciting to realise that a dog has this potential.”

Daisy’s Gift: The remarkable cancer-detecting dog who saved my life, by Claire Guest is published by Virgin Books, €16.99

How dogs can save lives

* In 2004, the first clinical study exploring dogs’ ability to smell cancer proved that those who believed in canine diagnostic abilities were not, well, barking mad.

* Dogs are able to detect tiny odour concentrations — the equivalent of one teaspoon of sugar in two Olympic-sized swimming pools — so they are potentially able to detect diseases, such as cancer, much earlier than is currently possible.

* Since that first study, UK charity Medical Detection Dogs has teamed with up with scientists, doctors and hospitals to pioneer tests aimed at speeding up the diagnosis of a range of illnesses.

* It has embarked on a three-year clinical trial with consultant urological surgeon Iqbal Anjum and the team at Milton Keynes Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in Britain to develop an early, accurate and non-invasive way to test for prostate cancer.

* During the trial, dogs (mostly labradors and spaniels) will be used as part of the diagnostic process for bladder, prostate and kidney cancer patients. Medical Detection Dogs is also doing pioneering research into the detection of breast and lung cancer.

* Dogs, however, can help with a range of other conditions from nut allergies and Addison’s disease to cardiac and endocrine conditions.

* A new trial with Manchester University will explore if there is a role for dogs in the early detection of Parkinson’s disease. Anecdotal evidence suggests the levels of sebum, an oily substance in the skin, change during the early stages of the disease. Two dogs are being trained to put that theory to the test.