Chronic SOS - September 1, 2023
It's finally September! I hope that means cooler weather too; it's been scorching hot outside! I'm not designed for the heat!
Labor Day and the end of summer vacations is upon us. In the spirit of the season, the Chronic SOS Posts- as well as some other posts - will be work and school related. There are so many things to discuss and I look forward to writing about them.
Kicking off September with a collection of dogs with jobs. These dogs are bringing home the bacon:
As cute as these dogs are, they're equally smart! These are the current dogs at InSitu Foundation. InSitu was founded to train dogs to detect early stages of cancer! This foundation is one of the first of its kind to publish research and has inspired other scientists to do similar work.
When I was in college, a nearby hospital participated in similar research. They gave thyroid cancer patients the option to donate any cancerous tissues they removed to be used to train dogs to detect early stages of thyroid cancer.
The research was conducted by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) and Frankie, the detection dog, was able to detect the cancerous tissues with an 88% success rate!
Frankie
Similarly, dogs are also being trained to sniff out beehives that are infected. Bees have been facing a number of threats - destruction of their habitats and pesticides, to name a couple - and many worry about the decreasing population. There are also bacterial infections that are attacking beehives with devastating results.
These dogs are trained to identify infected beehives before it spreads and causes mass destruction. Both cancer and some bacterial infections release unpleasant odors that the dogs easily sniff out. Once the hive is identified, the keepers can take appropriate steps to treat the infection and save the hive!
Other dogs put their noses to work finding a particular scent, but it's not always looking for illnesses:
In fact, there's an ancient Italian dog breed that is often trained to sniff out truffles! The Lagotto Romagnolo was originally bred to hunt waterfowl, but became a popular truffle sniffing dog and remains a popular breed for truffle hunting.
These dogs are popular in their native Italy, but have also become popular in the Pacific Northwest and anywhere that the delicacy fungus is found!
Though they don't have a K9 - 5, there's still a lot of work to do around the house and these are the good dogs for the job:
Bonus - this guy didn't quite pass his service dog training tests:
This is one of my favorite YouTube videos ever. The look of horror on the other dog's faces is priceless!
Want to share something sweet that helps the medicine go down? Want to share the best medicine, laughter? Fill out my Google form here and select "suggestions"! I'd love to hear from you!
