When are scientists going to realize that dogs are smarter than they are? German researchers have shown that highly trained dogs are more reliable than computed tomography (CT) scans. The scans for lung cancer were only 20 percent accurate and the dogs came in at 71 percent accurate.
What surprises me is the fact that many doctors totally dismiss dogs as being this capable and see them only as possible pets. Some doctors are waking up and reporting instances when a dog does identify cancer and the evidence is building about the effectiveness of dogs. Read my blog here about research on colon cancers and dogs detecting it in Japan.
When you read this article, make sure to read the last two paragraphs. Again the only thing medical researchers and doctors are interested in is discovering what the dogs are capable of and developing a new technology capable of duplicating what the dogs can do and relegating the dogs back to pets. Also read the fourth paragraph in this article.
I sincerely wish there was a way to determine to cost of the equipment they are trying to build to take the place of the dog and then annualize the cost of a dog and equipment to see if this would even be worth doing. Yes, some people can be allergic to dogs and a few people will have a fear or phobia of dogs, but dogs I feel can do a very good job even in a clinical setting.
Another variable mentioned in both articles is that the length of training varies and may have affected the results in some trials. This would create variables of unforeseen consequences and make some trials invalid from the start. Training costs can be high, but it would seem to get valid data, training should be the same for all trials.
