Content
- the smell of dogs
- How Dogs Detect Disease
- Can Dog Detect Coronavirus?
- How dogs identify the coronavirus
The dogs' sense of smell is impressive. Much more developed than human beings, which is why furry ones can follow tracks, locate missing persons or detect the presence of various types of drugs. Also, they are even able to iidentify different diseases that affect human beings.
Given the current pandemic of the new coronavirus, could dogs help us diagnose Covid-19? In this article by PeritoAnimal, we will explain a little about canine abilities, where are the studies on this topic and, finally, find out if a dog can detect coronavirus.
the smell of dogs
The olfactory sensitivity of dogs is far superior to that of humans, as has been shown in several studies that show surprising results about this great canine capacity. This is your sharper sense. A very remarkable experiment about this was the one carried out to find out if a dog would be able to distinguish uni or fraternal twins. The univitelline were the only ones that the dogs could not distinguish as different people, as they had the same smell.
Thanks to this incredible ability, they can help us with very different tasks, such as tracking hunting prey, detecting drugs, pointing out the existence of bombs or rescuing victims in disasters. Although perhaps a more unknown activity, dogs trained for this purpose can detect it at an early stage of certain diseases and even some of them in an advanced state.
Although there are breeds especially suited for this, such as hunting dogs, the marked development of this sense is a characteristic shared by all dogs. This is because your nose has more than 200 million odor receptor cells. Human beings have about five million, so you have an idea. In addition, the olfactory center of the dog's brain is highly developed and the nasal cavity is highly exalted. A large part of your brain is dedicated to smell interpretation. It's better than any sensor man has ever created. Therefore, it is not surprising that, at this time of the pandemic, studies have been initiated to determine whether dogs can detect coronaviruses.
How Dogs Detect Disease
Dogs have such a keen sense of smell that they can even detect illness in people. Of course, for this, a previous training, in addition to current advances in medicine. The dogs' ability to smell has been shown to be effective in detecting pathologies such as prostate, bowel, ovarian, colorectal, lung or breast cancer, as well as diabetes, malaria, Parkinson's disease and epilepsy.
Dogs can smell the specific volatile organic compounds or VOC's that are produced in certain diseases. In other words, each disease has its own characteristic "footprint" that the dog is able to identify. And he can do it in the early stages of the disease, even before the medical exams diagnose it, and with almost 100% effectiveness. In the case of glucose, dogs are able to alert up to 20 minutes before their blood level rises or falls.
THE early detection is essential to improve the disease prognosis like cancer. Likewise, anticipating a possible increase in glucose in the case of diabetics or epileptic seizures is a very important benefit that can provide a huge improvement in the quality of life of affected people, who can be helped by our furry friends. In addition, this canine ability helps scientists identify biomarkers that can be further developed to facilitate diagnoses.
Basically, dogs are taught to look for the characteristic chemical component of the disease that you want to detect. For this, samples of feces, urine, blood, saliva or tissue are offered, so that these animals learn to recognize the smells that later will have to identify directly in the sick person. If he recognizes a certain odor, he will sit or stand in front of the sample to report that he is smelling the specific smell. When working with people, dogs can alert them. touching them with the paw. Training for this type of work takes several months and is, of course, carried out by professionals. From all this knowledge about canine abilities with scientific evidence, it is not surprising that in the current situation scientists have asked themselves whether dogs can detect the coronavirus and have started a series of research on this topic.
Can Dog Detect Coronavirus?
Yes, a dog can detect the coronavirus. And according to research carried out by the University of Helsinki, Finland[1], dogs are able to identify the virus in humans up to five days before the onset of any symptoms and with great effectiveness.
It was even in Finland that the government started a pilot project[2] with sniffer dogs at Helsinki-Vanda airport to sniff out passengers and identify Covid-19. Several other countries are also training dogs to detect the coronavirus, such as Germany, the United States, Chile, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Lebanon, Mexico and Colombia.
The objective of these initiatives is to use sniffer dogs in places of entry into countries, such as airports, bus terminals or train stations, to facilitate the movement of people without the need to impose restrictions or confinement.
How dogs identify the coronavirus
As we mentioned earlier, the ability of dogs to identify variations of volatile organic compounds in humans is key to detecting the coronavirus. This is not to say that the virus has any smell, but that dogs can smell the metabolic and organic reactions of a person when they are infected with the virus. These reactions produce volatile organic compounds which, in turn, are concentrated in sweat. Read this other PeritoAnimal article to find out if dogs smell fear.
There are different methods for training a dog to detect coronavirus. The first thing is to learn to recognize the virus. To do this, they can receive urine, saliva or sweat samples from infected people, along with an object they are used to or food. Then, this object or food is removed and other samples that do not contain the virus are placed. If the dog recognizes the positive sample, he is rewarded. This process is repeated a series of times, until the puppy gets used to the identification.
It's good to make it clear that there is no risk of contamination for furry ones, as the contaminated samples are protected by a material to prevent contact with the animal.
Now that you know that a dog can detect coronavirus, it might interest you to know about Covid-19 in cats. Watch the video:
If you want to read more articles similar to Can Dog Detect Coronavirus?, we recommend that you enter our Curiosities section of the animal world.