Dogtors!

I overheard a man on the bus today talking about how he is training his dog to sense low blood sugar. He mentioned that his girlfriend had type 2 diabetes, or hypoglycemia, one of the two, and that the dog senses when her blood sugar is perilously low. He said her dog was the on the verge of retirement, (she's getting old,) and that this dog was groomed as the replacement.

As far as I have ascertained, this is true. These dogs sense low blood sugar reactions, which occur often at night, and will wake people up to warn them of impending death.  I can see the value in this, the task of sensing the impending death of myself, or a loved one, awake has been never suited me too well. I am not much better in my sleep, so the dogs have arrived to save the day. This all seemed very possible and likely as my ears creeped over my book, listening to Will prod him on. I looked at this man, who now appeared to be sitcomesque in his immaculate appearance, which was very strange. Perfectly combed hair, not a speck of hair anywhere on his face, and a big full smile of blinding white teeth. I like my strangers telling me bullshit to be beraggled, drunk and screaming incoherently.

Apparently cancerous cells emit a specific odor not detectable by humans, but detectable by dogs with their sensitive hearing and smelling senses. This is the standard scientific explanation to prevent you from going to google to find out more about this and stop reading this post. Because I know lots of people are reading this, and expect nothing but journalistic integrity from me. I cannot disapoint my followers. They are my lifeblood.

ANYHOW, I think Lassie would do an appropriate job of barking to warn me of extremely low blood pressure and seizures- this has serious merit. But dogs that sniff cancer?

Alright, if they can detect the early onset of cancer, kind of like a doctor, after the dog warns you of the tumor, and the doom implicit in it's implications (aside: how could you distinguish the dogs "warning" from any other "warning," like "I'm hungry" or "Take my bitch ass for a fucking walk?") wouldn't you inevitably end up going to a doctor anyway? What, do you save maybe one co-payment? What's the difference between this and being regularly scanned and tested for cancer? Could there be perhaps, in addition to the dogs that detect cancer, an entire field devoted to dogs practicing medicine? A hospital staffed exclusively by dogs trained in the medical field? Could there be institutions educating dogs in the field of medicine? Would there be older professor dogs teach the student dogs, wearing tweed jackets with patches on the elbows and maybe a little dog cane? Does this not seem as preposterous as the dog sensing the tumor? Isn't he just as qualified to treat it?

Then someone made an interesting point. Perhaps these dogs are good for people that arehypochondriacs or at the very least paranoid they have cancer. Again, maybe these people should be seeing doctors anyway, which they will if they pass the first test, which is presumably a dog barking.

 

The stranger said that the dog won't tell you what kind of cancer it is, but that whether or not you have it. Good! Because wouldn't that be just too much? All of this is believable, except that the dog knows what kind of tumor it is. Now I don't believe a word of it. Anyway, I would ask the dog(tor) whether or not it is in remission. I would ask if it is a benign tumor. Is it a malignant tumor? Can the dog only detect tumors? Can it detect blood cancer or melanoma as well or exclusively tumors?

 

With this new information, I am dropping my health insurance, and going to the pound, with some great references I have received from a stranger screaming about his chicken coop when he was a little boy, of some great dogtors to check out. Have a nice day. Don't get cancer.