dogs and noses

The new blog post about dogs being able to detect ovarian cancer made me want to tell about my female, 5 year old, dog.

She has that "check out" instinct. With regular intervals, usually about once or  twice a week, she will do a "sniff-check," as we have come to call it. She does this to all our family, both me, husband, kids and the other dogs. She will sniff along your body, legs and arms, if allowed she will sniff at your breath, and then usually sigh contentedly and wander off or curl up next to you and go to sleep. If she finds a small wound then that gets a more intense, but careful, sniffing. She rarely try to lick it or anything, she just sniff it.

If you come home with a wound of any kind she will come over and insist - very politely, but firmly - to be allowed to snif you. The last time it happened to me, I came home after having donated blood. The minute I got into the house she knew that something was up, she followed me around and bugged me until I sat down and submitted to a sniff-check. She sniffed carefully all over me (and oh gods that tickles) until she found the puncture wound. That was sniffed for a while, then a perfunctury check of my other limbs (all present and accounted for) and a sniff at my breath. Then she let me go, and showed no further interest until the next day when she gave the opuncture site a check-up-sniff.

Another memorable occasion was when our then 3 year old daughter had scraped her knee at kindergarden. At home that evening I was folding the laundry when I heard the girl sound sort af annoyed-angry and went to see what was happening. The dog had the child backed into a corner and was very gently blocking her from moving while she was being sniffed. I told the girl that the dog just wanted to see her wound - she had been talking about it a lot and getting extra attention from the dog about it seemed to be gratifying for her, she started giggling and petting the dog, so I let them be and just observed. As soon as the wound was located and had been sniffed the dog was satisfied and moved off.

If a wound is infected the dog will be more intense in her sniffing, and will sometimes try to lick it, usually not, though. Actually we have started to let her sniff any wound we might have (yes, we are a family of clutzes) on a daily basis, because if the wound is starting to get infected the dog reacts before there is anything to see or feel and we can get the infection treated a day sooner than it would otherwise be possible. Although I hope I will never have to explain that to our family doctor

One thing is sure. If she start showing any interest in any of my moles I am going to get that mole removed asap....