Pomeranian Alerts Woman To Cancer
Thanks to Karen, Roxie’s furmom, for barking in about this article in Petcentric!
And I soooo agree with you about listening to dogs!
Karen wrote:
Hi Joy,
Here’s another great story about how a dog helped save a woman’s life by detecting her breast cancer. Maybe we SHOULD pay more attention to our dogs and what they may be “saying”.
Pomeranians Strange Behavior Helps Woman Detect Breast Cancer
Even for a pet who loves to cuddle, Teddy Bear seemed too attentive for Georgina. Her one-year-old Pomeranian had acted strangely for about a month. When she would sit or lay down with Teddy Bear, he would sniff, paw away at, and jump on her right side.
Enlarge photo Georgina and her husband, Robert, tried to put the pieces together but couldn’t. They would push Teddy Bear away, thinking he was being playful in an odd canine sort of way. “He was driving me right up the wall,” said Georgina, recalling the events of fall 2004. “He wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Then one night, after she had showered, Georgina was on the bed with her dog. He started to bury his head in her right side again, as always, only her right side. Teddy Bear became increasingly agitated, his eyes popping out like saucers. He looked almost like he might be about to nip her.
But this time, his contact with her right breast caused some pain. Georgina immediately began to examine the area. She felt a lump, a hard consistency in her breast. The next day, she and Robert went to the doctor. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and, very shortly afterwards, she had surgery.
Today, Georgina is doing fine. She is convinced her dog’s persistence was the key to her discovering the lump. Georgina had been in the habit of breast self-examination but her family had no real history of breast cancer. Teddy Bear has never repeated his display of insistent digging and sniffing.
No one will ever know if Teddy Bear had ‘sniffed out’ the tumor. But there is research that shows dogs may detect alkanes (simple hydrocarbon compounds) and benzene derivatives exuded by tumors.
Follow this link to read the rest of the article.
