• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Seizure detecting dogs?

ottle

Muse
ottle
Joined
Nov 17, 2006
Messages
517
I've been hearing miscellaneous reportings of this in the news and am very curious if anyone has any information about whether this could be real.

http://www.workingdogs.com/vcepilepsy.htm

It seems plausible but I really haven't found much other than anecdotal evidence. I've also heard about cancer-sniffing dogs :) I want to believe that by the time I turn 40, I'll get a puppy to sniff my chest instead of having to deal with a mammogram! :)

I did find this article which seems to have done some homework and seems to be saying that it's rare, if at all possible.

http://www.uwsp.edu/psych/dog/LA/sapp1.htm

Anyone know of any studies that have been done on this?
 
People often act differently right before a siezure. Dogs can learn to detect that behavior. It's no big deal. As far as cancer sniffing dogs go there is no cancer smell but people with certain types of cancer may have a specific smell that can be detected by a dog trained to do so. The only thing I have heard that sounds very plausible is urinary tract cancer sniffing dogs.
 
ottle said:
..... I want to believe that by the time I turn 40, I'll get a puppy to sniff my chest instead of having to deal with a mammogram! :)
Click to expand...

I hope that by the time you turn 40, I get to watch!
 
Dogdoctor said:
People often act differently right before a siezure. Dogs can learn to detect that behavior. It's no big deal. As far as cancer sniffing dogs go there is no cancer smell but people with certain types of cancer may have a specific smell that can be detected by a dog trained to do so. The only thing I have heard that sounds very plausible is urinary tract cancer sniffing dogs.
Click to expand...

Interesting - in some of the things I've read, people say that it's an innate ability, not something trainable. Others say that all dogs can detect seizures but not all dogs 'choose' to alert on them. I guess there's just a lot of random information out there that is being reported as fact... I hate that :)
 
ottle said:
Interesting - in some of the things I've read, people say that it's an innate ability, not something trainable. Others say that all dogs can detect seizures but not all dogs 'choose' to alert on them. I guess there's just a lot of random information out there that is being reported as fact... I hate that :)
Click to expand...
I don't think it is any special talent and that you could train humans to do the same since the cues are visual. But it's cheaper to have a dog trained to do that. Some people can detect their own seizures coming on.
 
Dogdoctor said:
I don't think it is any special talent and that you could train humans to do the same since the cues are visual. But it's cheaper to have a dog trained to do that. Some people can detect their own seizures coming on.
Click to expand...

Plus, as far as cancers of the urinary tract, it's probably easier to train a dog to sniff your crotch than it would be to find a human willing to do so. Heck, that would be a dream job for a dog, no?

Or do they just sniff your pee pee?
 
I think the study I read was sniffing urine samples. It makes sense to me but the reliability was not great yet it was much better than chance.
 
It's never been proven in a really scientific way, but I personally think it's plausible.
There are really complex chemical reactions that go on when people have seizures. As soon as a seizure starts...even very small ones...opioid peptides start flooding your brain to shut the seizure down (as an example). It wouldn't surprise me if dogs can smell some of these chemical changes.

I also think dogs might be able to smell adrenaline increases in some round about way, and neurological weirdness in the temporal lobes definitely affects that.

And for a really far fetched possibility...I've read that canines have some kind of sensors in their noses that can detect small electromagnetic changes in the environment (some sort of evolutionary thunderstorm related thing)...so maybe something like that might play a role, as well.
Maybe. But that might just be pseudoscience alltogether about the electromagnetism thing and dogs that happened to make it into a book on animal behaviorism I read.
 
6 dogs trained for 7 months. If they trained a lot of dogs and picked the best ones they may get better reliability (or not). Often service dogs are weeded out from many who are put through the training.
 
My ex-wife is a diabetic. We had a golden retriever that could detect when her sugar was low. I am sure it was a certain odor that Sadie recognized, then she would whine and lick my ex's hand. We knew to check her sugar when Sadie acted this way. She woke her up on more than one occasion in the middle of the night and would not leave her alone until she got her sugar back to normal.

As I said, I am sure it was an odor that caused this reaction, but how she learned to act upon it as she did, I have no idea.

Sadly, we had to put her down three years ago due to old age. I still miss my Sadie girl.
 
Thitical Crinker said:
My ex-wife is a diabetic. We had a golden retriever that could detect when her sugar was low. I am sure it was a certain odor that Sadie recognized, then she would whine and lick my ex's hand. We knew to check her sugar when Sadie acted this way. She woke her up on more than one occasion in the middle of the night and would not leave her alone until she got her sugar back to normal.

As I said, I am sure it was an odor that caused this reaction, but how she learned to act upon it as she did, I have no idea.

Sadly, we had to put her down three years ago due to old age. I still miss my Sadie girl.
Click to expand...

Awwww... what-a-goo'puppy!!!

Sorry about your loss - I have three completely not useful dogs and I will be a train wreck when I lose them...
 
Katana said:
Dogs are wonderful (and that's coming from a cat lover).
Click to expand...

Yeah, but you're not going to see a lot of cancer detecting cats... they may notice it but they won't do anything about it :) You don't see a lot of sheep-herding cats or cats pulling people out of burning buildings either... :)

But I won't turn this thread into dogs vs. cats :) Even I will admit there are a few cats in the world that aren't completely evil ...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom