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by - November 12, 2009 - 3:30 PM
It’s no secret that I love dogs. And that I like to work pictures of my dogs into my posts if there’s even the tiniest shred of linkage between the post and canines. Like so:
But they’re more than just companions – dogs can be trained to do so much these days (I mean, not mine. Mine are beyond hope. Other dogs.) Here are just 10 of the ways dogs are contributing to society.
1. By smelling out peanuts. For kids (and adults) with severe peanut allergies, this is a life-saver – literally. Some dogs can now be trained to detect anything with a peanut scent – so it’s not as if the dog will only do good if you have an open can of Planters on the counter. Among other things, peanut oil is used for cooking and peanut shells are often used in potting soil. I’m sure those of you with peanut allergies can tell us a hundred other ways peanuts cause you grief in unexpected ways.
2. By serving autistic people. Sometimes autistic people can get overwhelmed by a situation with a lot of stimuli, and a service dog can help them understand what should be prioritized. For instance, if the phone was ringing and the smoke alarm was going off, some autistic people may decide to answer the phone. A dog trained to help that person would help them get outside as soon as possible.
3. By helping when their owner has a seizure. A person prone to seizures can get a dog that is trained to get help, by trying to get the person to come back around if they have passed out and by keeping the person from walking into things or falling (some big dogs are actually trained to “throw” themselves under a person’s head when they are fainting). And some dogs actually detect a seizure before it happens based on the human’s change of behavior and scent – but this isn’t a trainable thing, according to National Geographic. It’s an innate ability based on the dog’s level of awareness.
4. By detecting low or high blood sugar levels. If diabetics don’t know their blood sugar is low, they can get a dog that can smell the change in sugar levels. The dog then alerts the diabetic (often by barking), which triggers the diabetic to test their sugar and act accordingly.
5. By helping people with psychiatric problems. Some dogs can even be trained to help people with problems like paranoia, schizophrenia or posttraumatic stress disorder. They can’t really do much to stop delusions, but they can help stop behavior that causes the person to injure themselves, or, like diabetics, dogs can help “remind” the person that they need to take their medication. They can also guide the person out of a situation they perceive to be causing stress, or help steady the person if they get dizzy.
6. By detecting cancer. Yep – studies have shown that dogs can smell bladder cancer in urine. In fact, during one study, the dogs actually proved the researchers wrong. Researchers were given a urine sample that they were assured was cancer-free to be used in a test against other samples. When dog after dog continued to select the cancer-free sample, researchers got frustrated and started to become convinced that preliminary tests had been wrong; that dogs actually couldn’t detect bladder cancer. Then, on a whim, they sent the cancer-free urine sample in for a test. It turned out that the person who provided the sample did have cancer – bladder cancer.
7. By sniffing out bed bugs! Worried about that questionable hotel room? In certain parts of the country, you can hire dogs to come in and smell for pests. Right now, bed bug-sniffing dogs are used mostly by Housing Authority-type places to ensure that apartments and public housing units are up to par, but they are starting to be employed for private use as well.
8. By helping the hearing or seeing impaired. Of course, dogs that do this are probably the most well-known type of service dog. They’re trained to answer to sounds their owners can’t hear, obviously – doorbells, smoke alarms, alarm clocks – or help guide them. But they’re also trained to ignore their masters, which is a tricky task. Not always, but if their owner urges them to walk ahead and there’s danger looming (such as traffic), the dog knows to refuse to obey until their owner understands what’s going on.
9. By sniffing out drugs… on teens. You’ve seen drug-sniffing dogs at airports, but now they’re being turned on the bedrooms of teenagers in some states. In Ohio and New Jersey, suspicious parents can hire a drug-sniffing dog for $200 an hour to scour their kids’ bedrooms for illegal substances. It might be a stretch as far as the “medical community” is concerned, but I bet a parent who could have prevented an overdose would be grateful for the saved emergency room trip.
10. Dogs that can smell pregnancy. Yep – your dog probably knows you’re pregnant before you do. It might not know that you’re pregnant, exactly, but it can smell hormone and pheromone changes, which can often result in your dog becoming more protective (or more possessive of the coveted spot on your lap). It can swing the other way, too – your dog might decide that the guy in the house is a much better person to be around for nine months. While pregnancy detection may not exactly be the benefit to society that cancer and low blood sugar detection are, I find it pretty interesting nonetheless.
Has anyone experienced any of these personally? I’d love to hear about it!
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Comments (21)
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I read about named Debbie Marvit-McGlothin whose untrained mixed-breed dog showed compulsive fascination with a mole on her leg. The dog would sniff, lick, and paw at it, and even bit it. After having the mole examined and found cancerous, it was removed.
I found this one so interesting just because the dog was totally untrained. For some reason, that mole really bothered the dog.
posted by Dave on 11-12-2009 at 3:59 pm
The untapped potential within nature is truly incredible. I’m glad that you focused on specific tasks that can be accomplished as opposed to the vague concept of therapeutic companionship. Much like the practice of Dolphin-therapy for autistic children, the actual benefits are not able to be measured and are potentially non-existent.
posted by Dave on 11-12-2009 at 4:11 pm
When my D-I-L was pregnant my rottie-pit mix dog would jump up on the couch next to her and lay her head across my D-I-L-s lap and scrutinize anyone who came near. She never did it before the pregnancy or after the baby wass born. She started doing it very early in the pregnancy. Was kind of funny at the time.
recaptcha: pelvises man
posted by JaneM on 11-12-2009 at 4:12 pm
My Lab, who has never met a person or dog he didn’t love, started barking at people who walked by the house, the mailman, etc. out of nowhere. One day we had a contractor come over to price some work that needed to be done in the basement. The dog was following him around and licking his hand while he and I were going over the work, and my wife was upstairs.
When we were done my wife called the dog from the top of the stairs. The contractor started to go up behind the dog, and the dog turned and started growling and barking at him.
My wife was worried about the dog becoming mean and started to look for trainers we could call. Then we found out that she was pregnant, and had gotten so around the time the dog started getting protective.
posted by Jon on 11-12-2009 at 4:23 pm
My friend and her husband had 2 dogs. One dog favored her and the other dog favored her husband. When she became pregnant her husband’s dog kept following her around. It was something he had never done before. He started this new behavior before she even knew she was pregnant. He was very protective of her during her entire pregnancy and then once their son was born, it went back to the old way of the dog ignoring my friend.
posted by Mavis on 11-12-2009 at 4:52 pm
Our German shepherd can sense my husband’s low blood sugar. She has woken him up out of a number of lows in the middle of the night. She is the second dog of his to do this, both of them untrained in this task.
posted by danielle on 11-12-2009 at 5:27 pm
I had a search & rescue dog, certified for wilderness, cadaver & water searches. At a large group training, using an abandoned military building, the search area was described and unused areas had closed doors, preventing access. My dog kept insisting that there was a scent source inside an out of bounds area, a bathroom. The observers and coordinators repeatedly assured me that there was nothing inside that room. I chose to believe my dog and opened the door, allowing him access. He immediatley went to a waste can and alerted. Sure enough, there were bloody paper towels in the can.
posted by Carmichael, CA on 11-12-2009 at 5:33 pm
@Dave
I have seen therapy pets up close. It’s measurable. Very measurable. The problem is that it’s situation specific. You have a 65 year old man who won’t take his meds and treats the staff like crap. You bring a therapy dog and all of a sudden he is all smiles and is all peaches and cream. It’s because he was a dog person. He loved dogs and has had one up until he was put into a home.
Person number two is in a similar situation. It won’t work for them because they were attacked by rottie when they were twelve and they hate dogs. But seeing a shell of a man, or a woman . . . sadly even children . . .turn into people again because of a lick on the cheek. It’s amazing.
posted by Nathan on 11-12-2009 at 5:55 pm
It may not be as amazing as sniffing out cancer, but my dog is very empathetic to my emotions. I have pretty bad depression, and if I’m having a “bad” day, he’ll run up to me and lick me until I laugh. He gets very very excited then runs away.
posted by Leah on 11-12-2009 at 7:28 pm
I work with children with autism. One had a family dog that began alerting her parents when she had a seizure at night, completely untrained. I also know a boy with a trained service dog who helps reduce anxiety. I agree results can be measured, but using single subject research because each situation is so individual.
posted by sara on 11-12-2009 at 8:29 pm
Our black Lab, Wiggles, was the unwanted one of a litter of 12. We couldn’t leave her, so we bought her to accompany her brother and sister so each our sons would have his own Lab to grow up with. Amazingly, each Lab picked his or her own “boy” and personalities couldn’t be more similar–friends can even guess whose dog is whose by their behavior.
Wiggles–my youngest son’s lab–was accused of “jumping up on” and “nipping” at Chase, my middle son…totally out of character for her…it wasn’t until he had a major atonic seizure after her unusual behavior that we realized she was warning him of an impending seizure!!! That first time of jumping up on him and nipping at him, in retrospect, had made him back away from a farm pond and sit down…Thank God for Wiggles!!!
posted by Lisa on 11-12-2009 at 10:59 pm
Your dog is adorable. I too have a dappled doxie, albeit a smooth coat, and not odd-eyed. My female is a long haired. Mine too are beyond all hope of them being trained for something excellent, I’m still working on potty manners. My Elkie on the other hand is a very good judge of character. She does a great job of alerting us of anyone that could potentially be a hazard to us, especially random strangers knocking on the door. She’s also very compassionate, if she accidentally hurts one of us and we make a ‘painful’ sound, she’ll lick and nuzzle whatever body part she injured (foot, face, arms). I’ve never had a dog that did that.
posted by Michelle on 11-12-2009 at 11:02 pm
I know this is about dogs, but I’ll venture in and mention my cat who used to poke me in the face until I woke up whenever I had sleep apnea. She also kept pouncing on me one night until I got up to put her into another room and discovered the electrical wire of my living room lamp that was smoking. She never once alerted me to earthquakes, though, and calmly lived through them without blinking an eye.
posted by Elizabeth Munroz on 11-13-2009 at 3:10 am
We have a K9 dog that specializes in Bombs and tracking. Its always fun to see what he is capable of from tracking people to locating 14 different explosives. Its really fun living with a K9, especially when you cuddle with him at home and then you see him at work tracking people down and sometimes even doing attack work. Its quite the experience.
posted by J.A on 11-13-2009 at 10:06 am
Our beloved furbaby was a total Mommy’s dog for the first seven years. Then, my husband came down with an unexplained illness that had him dizzy, nauseous, and hard of hearing. Our dog Chubby stayed by the couch with Daddy night and day, and would come get me from wherever I was in the house if Hubby needed something. Although the first two symptoms eventually stopped, the hearing loss was permanent. Until the dog’s last days, if someone came to the door, or a phone rang, he would run to hubby, look at him or even put his paws on hubbys legs, then run to the door or ringing phone. He’d repeat this until Hubby went to the door or phone. He never had any training for this, but just knew that Daddy needed his help. Man, I miss my dog.
posted by Jamie on 11-13-2009 at 10:25 am
The comments are as nice as the stories.
Thanks, everyone.
However, the reCAPTCHA is: “America piggier” and that was just too insane to pass up.
posted by Bubba on 11-13-2009 at 10:42 am
While not exactly helpful, my parents had a dog early in their marriage who, despite their best efforts, continued to escape their yard. They eventually bought a stake and had a fence installed. One day they watched as she dug up the stake, climbed the fence (yes, climbed–not jumped), then ran down the street dragging leash and stake behind her.
reCAPTCHA: Blazed twice. Nice!
posted by Lindsey on 11-13-2009 at 11:36 am
Growing up we had a German Sheppard/Husky mix, that was OVERLY protective of me and my siblings. She was purchased as a guard dog (we had a robbery) but my parents were concerned about such a (eventually) large dog with 3 small kids. So, the breeder told us to give her a little test. Take her home and feed her, while she is eating have each of the kids try to take food from the bowl. If the dog so much as growls bring her back. When we did it we were each able to take food from the bowl with no problem. When Dad reached into the bowl, Roxy almost took his hand off. Dad realized that this dog would be perfect. She’s been gone for 15 years and I still miss her.
I later learned that Sheppards have an instict to protect children of the family. I’m getting one as soon as I have kids.
posted by Adam on 11-13-2009 at 3:18 pm
#8 seems to be confusing hearing impaired people and blind people. Someone hearing impaired would be able to see traffic ahead.
posted by T on 11-13-2009 at 3:51 pm
I’m going to be the other oddball that brings up cats during a dog story.
I also suffer from depression. It’s a nasty, nasty disease. I was having a particularly rough day, and my cat jumped into my lap and gave me a kiss on the nose. He is not a lap cat by any means; he’s very independent. I started to think from that moment on that God must work through these animals sometimes. He didn’t pull me from a fire or alert me to any life threating goings-on, but he gave me the spark I needed to pull through that episode.
posted by Pearl on 11-13-2009 at 4:18 pm
In my family we have a superstition that a dog can save you from imminent death. We usually lose a dog right before someone in the family gets a potentially fatal sickness. The dog will not be found, but the sick person recovers. I had a godfather who owned a German shepherd. It went missing right before my godfather got a heart attack. He eventually died during heart attack number 2. Sort of makes me wonder if he would have lived longer if he took in another dog after Bingo.
posted by Sam on 11-13-2009 at 10:41 pm