Training Dogs To Sniff Out Cancer! | SOP Ep. 117 - Dr. Cynthia Otto & Dr. Clara Wilson

Welcome to Speaking of Pets. I'm Dr. Alice Novotny-Jeroman, a board-certified veterinary dermatologist. And I'm not. I'm Janet Novotny-King, the doctor's sister, podcast co-host, pet owner, rescuer, and lover. We're here to provide pet owners with science-based information to help them be the best pet parents they can be. Here's today's episode, created just for you and your pets. Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in today. Janet, I am so excited about meeting today's guest. Dr. Cindy Otto and Dr. Clara Wilson are both the authors of, I'm going to read the title, Trained Dogs Can Detect the Odor of Hemangiosarcoma in Canine Blood Samples. And what all that means is they are training dogs to detect cancer in other dogs. And I love that because dogs can detect cancer in us, and I want dogs to live longer. I want to find out cancer early in dogs too, so we can do something about it. So welcome to the show, Dr. Cindy Otto and Dr. Clara Wilson. And can you tell us a little bit about yourselves and how you came to be doing what you're doing? We have a Buckeye. We have a Buckeye over there. I know it. Go Bucs! We probably saw each other in the halls because you were 86 grad and I was 89. I was probably there, absolutely. O-H. I-O. I was on you. I was in those hallways and I graduated in '81. I was in the business school. Okay. We didn't know that existed. The vet school is all its own little island. It is an island. It's absolutely an island. So I can start because I'm older. So as you mentioned, I graduated from The Ohio State University in 1986. And I went on and I did an internship at the University of Pennsylvania. I did a residency at the University of Georgia, and a PhD in Veterinary Physiology. I then came back to the University of Pennsylvania. I achieved my board certification in emergency and critical care, a little bit of an alternate route. And then had a research lab, worked in the emergency room, and eventually got involved in search and rescue dogs. And that led, one thing led to another. I deployed with our search and rescue task force that I had been a member of. Since about 1994. And in 2001 was that pivotal moment where we deployed to 9/11. So in 2001, I deployed with the Pennsylvania task force to ground zero. And took care of the working dogs, the search and rescue dogs at that site. Following that, I was all in on search and rescue dogs and working dogs. And spent the next 10 years, 11 years, trying to figure out how do we develop a research, training, and education center to support the knowledge that supports these dogs, to understand these dogs. And also, because there was always a shortage of these dogs, how do we help address that? As part of that, I then became board certified in canine sports medicine in order to support the physical wellbeing of these dogs. of these dogs. The big research that kind of led through all of that was the American Kennel Club Canine Health Foundation funded longitudinal study of the search and rescue dogs from 9-11. I think we've published about 15 papers from the information we've collected from those amazing dogs and it really inspired a lot of what we do. In 2012, we opened the Penn Vet Working Dog Center as a research training education facility. We have since had over 200 dogs come into the program. I think we're close to our 200th graduate. We have a research basis because our real goal is to determine how do we help support these dogs from a research standpoint. And people like Dr. Clara Wilson, who's a postdoc in our program, has really helped push that forward. We have published over 85 papers from the Working Dog Center sharing the knowledge that we have been accumulating. So it's an exciting program. It is so comprehensive and so unique because we bring in puppies at eight weeks of age. They come to work five days a week and then they spend evenings and weekends with foster families so that they can become socialized. They pick their own careers. They get to tell us, whether they want to be a search and rescue dog or maybe they'd prefer to be a police dog or maybe they'd prefer to do just maybe some explosive detection work or maybe be one of our research dogs to help with projects like the one that we're talking about now. So this has been my life's dream and really it is kind of my opus as well. Wow. I know I'm just like, wow. I mean, to be doing, first of all, to be involved with the dogs of 9-11 and all they did for us and now to be doing what you're doing with not only detecting cancer and everything else that you're doing as far as the olfactory thing, but having dogs help each other. I love that. Well, Dr. Wilson, tell us a little about you and I love your accent, by the way. Today's episode is sponsored by Dr. Tim's Pet Food. Learn more at drtims.com. Yeah, thank you. I didn't come from the UK. My entry into the field is a little different because growing up, I really loved animals and I had been around service dogs. My grandfather's blind, so I'd grown up with dogs and looking at that relationship and how dogs can help us and how we can help dogs. And so I was really interested in that, but I didn't really want to be a vet. I was very interested in animal behavior and human-animal interaction. And so I was lucky enough to go into psychology and have an amazing professor who specializes in animal cognition. And as soon as I found out that that was its own field, I was like, wow, this is exactly what I want to do. And so I pursued that then into a master's of applied animal behavior and welfare, and then into my PhD. And by that point, I was really honing in on these different ways that animals can help us, but especially interested in their olfaction, because I felt like I had a pretty good sense of seeing eye dogs and hearing dogs. But I thought that was a really underutilized world with that sense of smell that I was very interested in. And so my PhD was all about canine olfaction and applied behavior. And I was specifically looking at dogs being able to smell human psychological stress. So when humans were getting stressed, their odor profile changing. And so I was able to show that the dogs can smell that when you take samples from people in the lab, they can discriminate between those samples. So that was what my PhD work was in. And I'd been able to come over to the PenVet Working Dog Center a couple of times for different internships, and I just loved it and knew I wanted to come back as soon as possible. And so once the postdoc opened up, I snapped it up because I couldn't wait to come back. So I've been here almost four years now doing this biomedical olfaction work, but also a lot of canine cognition, puppy development, and also some fitness, occupational health, and longevity work. So I'm really lucky to be able to dip into lots of these different research areas that Cindy set up. So what happens when you're at a party and someone says, what do you do? And you say, I'm an olfactory veterinarian. I mean, it's like, wow. No, let me tell you, first of all, all they have to hear is veterinarian. All the things in front of it makes no difference because then you get the questions. The dog had diarrhea yesterday. What can I do? Blah, blah, blah. And they're on some kind of medication. Yeah, it's blue. But I've got a question for you too. So do you, you don't only work with one particular breed, right? You work with. A bunch of different breeds? We have preferred breeds. And part of that is because of the history of some of these breeds, we're really interested in the genetics and what makes a good working dog. And so all dogs have the capacity to do olfactory tasks. And we know that because canine nose work, the sport, you can look at that and just every breed in the world is. Is participating in that. And they love it. It's great for the dogs. But if we're looking for a dog that we actually want to do this as a career, we need a dog that has that motivation and the physical and mental capacity to do this repetitively. And that's really one of the challenges is to identify those dogs. So most of the dogs in our program are labs or shepherds, whether that's German shepherds, Belgian Malinois, Dutch shepherds. But we've, we've had a few other breeds. And, and some of them are better suited, particularly in our environment. As I mentioned, our dogs, they come into the, this classroom five days a week, they go home, they have lots of interns and volunteers and other people interacting with them. Some dogs are not as flexible in their ability to handle the chaos. And so, you know, that's, that's really what we, we're looking at in addition and in our program, our dogs graduate and they leave us and they go to jobs. And so there are some breeds that are not as easy to play with. place in, in jobs because of people's perceptions of those breeds. And so that's, that's another reason that we've, we've mostly worked with the shepherds in the labs, but we've also been most successful. We understand those dogs and we understand how they learn. We understand how they adapt. And 93% of the dogs that have entered our program have actually graduated into working careers, which is unheard of. And yeah, we're, we're so excited. We think there's a lot of reasons for that. One being that we start so early. Another is that we don't force the dog to pursue a career that is not consistent with what their needs are. So we, we, you know, we allow the dog to tell us, you know, search and rescue is pretty cool, but I'm scared of heights. I'm not doing that. And so they, you know, they will go into a different career, but we still find careers that are successful and productive. And that's, that's, I am so proud of that. And you may have noticed that in the, in the paper that we're talking about today, there was a real mix of breeds and that's because the, the paper was a little different in that we had one dog who is from our program, Vork, who is actually Cindy's foster dog. So Vork is a black Labrador and she is a kind of full-time research dog, but because of the scope of the project, and we had other projects going on that some of the other research dogs in our program were dedicated to this time, we actually opened it up a lot to what we had in mind. And so we, we, we, we call our community science program, and that is either staff or people in the community's pet dogs who are allowed to come in and try for this type of research study. So this specific study ended up having four community science dogs and one dog from our program, and that's a little bit unusual. And so there we do have this wider representation of breeds. So we had a hound mix and a kind of pit bull border collie mix. So it's a bit more variability there, and that's because the only job that these dogs are required to do is kind of confined to the laboratory as opposed to maybe needing to go out onto rubble or into the environment. So we do see sometimes a slightly wider net for these types of olfaction-based studies as opposed to some of the working roles like a search and rescue dog where you may need to be a certain size or something like that to be able to do the job. You know, Alice, they did not mention, and I'm just going to say present company excluded right here. Golden Retrievers? No, I'll let both the doctors tell you about Golden Retrievers. I will tell you, this one has exceptional sniffies. Well, we have a golden in one of our current research studies, so you'll see. Golden Retriever. Hope you're enjoying today's Speaking of Pets podcast. Every week we feature a board-certified specialist, dermatology, knee, oncology, internal medicine, orthopedic surgery, ophthalmology, dentistry, you name it. If it affects pets, we're on it. We're here to share some really good information for pet owners, practical information that is science-based so that you can be a pet owner and have a healthier pet. To learn more about your pet's health, check out our other episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. I'm Larry. Some of you know me as Grandpa Larry, and I run Larry's Animal Safari on YouTube. Where we share sweet and educational videos about baby gorillas, zoo animals, and the amazing teams who care for them. If you love animals of all kinds, I'd love to have you join us. You'll meet little ones like Jamila and Kayembe, learn how zoo families grow, and enjoy real moments that bring joy and curiosity to animal lovers everywhere. Just search Larry's Animal Safari on YouTube or click the link in the show notes. New videos go up weekly, and each one supports awareness and awareness-based care. So, if you're interested in learning more about zoo animals, check out our other episodes. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. These were all confirmed to manjo sarcoma cases, except for the one, the trickster, which I'm still, I had to read that three times. You mean it's like a fake one? No, they'll tell you. Would you tell Janet about that? Sure. So, the way we got our samples was from various biobanks and also a lot from the Morris Animal Foundation's Golden Retriever Lifetime Study. And one of the prerequisites for coming into our kind of sample base was that if it was a manjo sarcoma case, it was a manjo sarcoma case. So, if it was a manjo sarcoma sample, the dog had been confirmed through histopathology as having manjo sarcoma. But one of our samples, we had over 400 in the study, but we randomly using a number generator pre-selected 36 to be in the actual test. And unfortunately, one of our manjo sarcoma samples that we'd selected for test, actually, when we followed it up, wasn't confirmed in the way that it should have been. There was some disagreement between pathologists. And so, the first had said, "Yes, this is a manjo sarcoma." And so, it came to us as a manjo sarcoma. We didn't know until we looked back at the numbers and the dogs actually did very poorly on this one sample. They were only around 30-something percent accurate. And so, we followed up with the provider and said, "I can't see anything in the spreadsheets to tell us that this sample is unusual, but the dogs didn't seem to think it smelled like manjo sarcoma." And then they came back to us and said, "Actually, since it came to you, I don't think it's a manjo sarcoma." A second pathologist has said, "No, that's not a manjo sarcoma." They sent it to a third. In the end, they decided it was too inconclusive to give it a yes or no. So, they just marked it as inconclusive, but it was clearly an unusual and not a cut and dry case. And so, that was very exciting because it suggests that the dogs were actually able to pick that up even better than the traditional methods. And so, that was an unusual one because it was kind of a mistake, but actually, it was a very helpful mistake because it told us, "If you do have a manjo sarcoma, you're going to have to have a case that is presenting like manjo sarcoma, but maybe isn't. Actually, yes, the odour compounds, they're able to tell them apart, and they were pretty sure that it wasn't." So, that was a slightly unusual piece that kind of was an accident, but actually a very interesting and helpful accident. Happy accident. I thought that was impressive. I thought, you know, these dogs are so good, and we're not, you know what I'm saying? As pathologists, like three pathologists that look at this, gosh, come to think of it, if we have something removed, I want three or four pathologists looking at it. You know what I'm saying? Do you know, Alice, there is a dog named Otto in their program, and I wonder who she, and it's a female, and I wonder who she's named after. It's actually a male. Ah, no. It's a male, not shepherd. Oh, really? Because I thought that was weird because it says "female". We'll have to fix that. Maybe non-binary. Wouldn't be helpful. I don't know. I think Otto's pretty good. He's pretty clearly male. He's got a lot of testosterone. As I looked at it, I'm like, oh my gosh. Yes, he was named. We had a really kind donor who made a donation and was then able to name a dog, and they chose the name Otto in my honor, which was a little embarrassing but very touching. No, that's very special. I thought it was cute. Now, does it make a difference in the olfactory senses if the dogs are spayed or neutered? Do you find that intact or neutered makes a difference? Here's something we love about Dr. Tim's pet food. Every formula starts with a question. Does this actually help the animal not just look good on a shelf? Dr. Tim has spent decades as a working vet, and that experience shows up across the entire product line. Whether your dog is a little overweight and needs a healthy, balanced food to help shed a few pounds, or could be a picky eater who won't touch their breakfast without Dr. Tim's Vagabond Freeze-Dried Toppers, or just a regular couch companion who deserves real nutrition in every bowl. 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It's a great, healthy food that can help your hypothyroid, you know, something along my neck of the woods in Durham, you know, or could dog or a pseudomonas ear dog type thing but i think i commend you for doing that because i'm sure someone would have asked you about that yeah i think it's really important and there are still some studies out there that don't have what we would call a disease control group but we do need to take those with a pinch of salt because the dogs are really good at finding differences but we can't ascribe that they have an understanding like i can say they're smelling cancer if i only have a cancer group and a healthy group but they might actually just be smelling different which could be all sorts of different things and maybe they're just smelling inflammation or other metabolism changes that are actually just meaning sick and that's helpful and still interesting to know but i then need to be very careful about not saying that they're smelling cancer and so that's why we need that control group and we do kind of see the dogs go through their different phases of understanding as i show them more and more examples they might initially alert on a on a diabetic dog or a dog with cushing's because they are using this wider spectrum of inflammation and then the more examples you show them and you teach them over time i'm going to reward you for alerting to this but not this they narrow down and so that's kind of interesting how narrow can we go because here we were just looking at hemangiosarcoma we haven't asked these specific dogs what about other cancer types for example um and so but that's kind of the process that you need to do to make sure that you're not just detecting different but it isn't necessarily your disease of interest i do want to make one comment though we often say you know dogs you know we're detecting dogs we're actually not having dogs sniffing dogs and the same in the human we're not having dogs sniff people it's always samples always removed it's always in the lab um i think that's a very different process um than someone going out into the community with a dog and sniffing dogs or people or whatever absolutely oh yeah look at the variables you know you take a dog into someone's home they could have other pets they could have cats i mean smells of smells galore i'm curious is okay so so we know they detect it how then do you isolate those volatile kind of those vocs or i mean i can't even imagine how you would do that what is in my question my question is how do you isolate those volatile kind of those vocs do we need to do that um and so to what end are we looking for those vocs um and so there are ways you know there are there are ways to make this a diagnostic tool without knowing what we're actually sensing um and so there's some electronic sensors that use the same agnostic approach but certainly our goal in working with the dogs is to identify what can we translate into a high throughput system that can be used to identify what can we use to identify what can we use to identify what can we use to identify what can we use to identify what can we use to identify what can we use something more mechanical to to do the screening because the dogs are amazing but it's also labor intensive it's yeah you think it's inexpensive because it's just a dog but it's actually really expensive because the training that goes into it um but i'm gonna go ahead and let clara sort of address the the vocs in more detail yeah it's kind of the always the next question is what what are the vocs and i think there's still a bit of a gap there's this kind of perceptual gap between the two and i think there's still a bit of a gap between the two knowing the individual chemicals and then what perception that is giving to the dog and we sometimes say like um you know i know the smell of coca-cola but it's actually vanilla lime and you know it's these specific ingredients but just looking at those together you're not thinking coca-cola because there's this perceptual gap and so that's kind of where we're at right now where we are able to define vocs and and some of our current work is actually doing that right now we're working with chemists and engineers to have the same samples that the dogs did in that published study run through a machine to say okay we're getting this amount of chemical a and this amount of chemical b the hard part is in translating that into then a predictive model and that's where the dogs are really still surpassing the technology and there's two potential reasons one is this perceptual gap that i've described where just knowing x amount of these hundred different chemicals still doesn't lead you to get this overall smell in the same way that the dogs are and the other is just that the dogs are the machines still aren't picking these very low volatiles up as well as the dog so we and the and the chemists and the engineers know this like they are very overtly open about the fact that their machines aren't able to pick up some of these ones that the dogs we know can so there's a little bit of an issue there and that we're missing some of the picture but also just knowing that each ingredient still doesn't seem to necessarily translate to the ability of a machine to then say yes to this one and no to that one in the same way that the dogs are able to do so there's a bit of a gap still but that is kind of what we're interested in to try and make a machine that can replicate what the dogs are doing with that level of you know accuracy that's just amazing are there any short nose any brachycephalic breeds no seriously i when i was reading this i thought boy in the old movies and tv shows you saw the bloodhounds going out you know and now we've got labs and golden retrievers and and shepherds no goldens no goldens it's not in this specific study but i'm thinking of these little pugs and i'm like pugs and you know all the french all the frenchies that are out now any short nose breeds doing this at all or is there a reason you couldn't use a short nose breed i i don't think there's a reason that you couldn't i know that the dr otter will speak better on the on the veterinary side of things my understanding from the literature is that there are some changes in the number of receptors and the number of genes that they have but not enough to make them in case of a short nose breed i would say probably a i think there's no reason why they couldn't i'm sure people are using brachycephalic dogs for this type of work i haven't personally come across one or had the pleasure of working with one but i think it's it's possible the other thing that you need to think about though is stamina and i think that where we may run into issues is just the the stamina piece of although it's not hugely energy taxing they they like to run in and out and some of them like to go faster than others and we're doing a lot of repeating and we're doing a lot of repeating and we're doing a lot of repeated trials and you need to be able to be keeping that sniff rate very high so i wonder if we may run into more issues with all of the extra soft tissue and and the but i don't know i think there probably are some successful brachycephalic dogs at least doing nose work and scent work this is a little bit of an extra level up because it's not just the presence absence question it's really low saliency discriminations um i know it was in the paper but it's only the 100 microliters that we were using in each box is is a tiny drop of blood and so it was it was a really small amount of blood serum that they were seeing and so i can't detect anything i mean if i were to sniff along the lineup i'm getting absolutely nothing let alone picking up changes between so the dogs do need to stay you know calm don't get too overheated we know that once they get hot and a panting too much it can interfere with their ability to do the task so we try and we try and keep that to a minimum but they love the job so sometimes they do get a little bit of blood and then they get a little bit of blood a little excited and we need to take a break so what does the training look like for these dogs it starts very young right yeah do you want to talk about the foundational training or do you want me to talk about the lab um yeah so i guess all of the dogs in our program are selected for their history of of olfactory work so they're either hunting lines or search and rescue lines you know so they've already they're already coming in with some so good foundation when they're here they start learning about using their noses from the time they're eight weeks old and we use a synthetic chemical um it's uh called the udc or the universal detection compound it's one bromide and so that is a compound that used to be used in dry cleaning now is not is pretty much not anywhere in the environment um and the uh folks at the florida international university developed it as almost like a calibration compound and so the nice thing about it is that we can work with our dogs and teach them to find this smell it's not going to interfere with any job that they do in the future but it teaches them the the mechanics of how to use their noses and how to search all of our dogs also are trained to find live humans um and so those two things happen from the time they get here and so those pieces are telling us one that they're the dogs in our program are using their noses they like using their noses and if they don't then they're maybe that very small sliver of dogs that will go on to do other things like maybe one of our golden retrievers who left the program to be a more of a comfort dog or a therapy dog but so that's you know so that's where they they all have that foundation and even our community science dogs have gone through some training with this compound just to make sure they're up for the task and then Clara and and Molly and our team get really in the nitty-gritty on getting them into the very difficult task of finding these biological odors yeah so the UDC piece is like Cindy said teaching the mechanics so the paradigm that we use they need to be able to give us an alert and the alert is a change of behavior that tells me that they're picking that individual sample and so the paradigm that we used for the paper we were using these odor delivery vices called olfactometers. And we also call them boxes because they look like a box. And each of those at a single time would be pumping the air from a single sample. So each one would have the drop of blood from one individual dog patient. And the nice thing about these olfactometers is that rather than me manually going in and we have one box that is the hemangiosarcoma box and I'm moving it around and the dogs might be adding their own odor to it, the more they pant on it and I'm touching it and all sorts of different contaminants can happen. Instead, with the olfactometers, we have three in a lineup and the computer will just switch on what valve is blowing the air. And so at a single time, one of them is presenting the hemangiosarcoma blood. The other one is a healthy dog's blood and the one next to it is a diseased dog's blood. And then every trial, so every time the dog is released to go smell the boxes, it will have moved around. Without anyone having to go in and touch anything. So that's been really great for us to use that type of technology. So the alert is still present. So they would have taught they would have learned how to do that with UDC. That's a much simpler question because it might be two empty boxes and one with UDC. And they just need to tell us either by sitting in front of it, but more typically standing and freezing over it. That this is the box that they're picking. They're getting their tail and getting all excited. Yeah, we have a couple of dogs that have like shaped different pieces. So we have one dog who will, you know, that they've kind of finished their alert because their tail was doing this and then it finally freezes too. But other dogs are still in the front, but really excited in the back. So we have all sorts of different little spins on it. But that's that alert tells me which one they're picking. When we move it to blood, it's a different, it's a lot harder because it's not presence absence. It's not empty, empty. I mean, it's not just, you know, it's, you know, it's a healthy dog, disease dog, hemangiosarcoma. So that's a little different. And it takes a lot of weeks of just showing them lots of lots of examples. So you start by just showing the hemangiosarcoma and kind of clicking or doing your marker word and rewarding them as soon as they sniff it. And you build that out a little bit longer, but you quickly need to also be involving those other samples. So they learn, actually, I need to discriminate between the two. But it's a really hard job for the dogs because they at some point are going to be wrong. Because they don't know this category yet. We're now adding in category formation. Yeah. And so that's where I think it's a really interesting but unique job for the dogs. Very different from some of our other scent domains where it's more of a kind of, is this my target odor or not here? I don't even know what about the hemangiosarcoma is their target. I just have to keep showing them examples and saying, yes, it's this. No, it's not that. But every week I'm showing them a new dog. So they come. Yeah. And they can't cling on to their memory of what they saw last week. So it's a very interesting task because it's mixing that discrimination, but also this category formation where they're having to learn this general odor that I can't perceive myself. So it does take a while. When it comes to feeding our pets, we believe in results you can see over hype. And that's exactly why we're proud to partner with Dr. Tim's Pet Food. Dr. Tim Hunt is a practicing veterinarian who spent decades formulating nutrition. For every kind of pet from the laid back lap dog to his own Iditarod sled team. Check out Dr. Tim's Pet Food and see what science back nutrition looks like for your pet. They'll have a shiny coat, more energy, healthy weight, and more. Because every great adventure, even a nap on the couch starts with a healthy pet. What made you decide hemangiosarcoma and not something like osteosarcoma or even lymphoma? I have a doctor question. Have you ever. Created letters to say that word instead of having to say hemangiosarcoma? When we write, yeah. Like HMS or something. I don't know. I'm making it up. It's actually the initials we use are HSA and autocorrect invariably turns it into HAS. Over has. Oh my God. Because every time you guys are saying it, I'm like. Yeah, HSA for sure. We also call it hemangio for short. There you go. So the reason. The reason that we chose hemangio, that this is actually. I'm glad you did. I'm just asking. Yeah. It's no, there's, there's a method to our madness. Um, we, we started in our cancer detection with human ovarian cancer and human ovarian cancer is a silent killer. There is no diagnostic test for it. And if it's diagnosed late, the prognosis is really, really grim. Hemangiosarcoma hemangio is the same, um, in our dogs. And part of it that really kind of clinched it for us, cause we'd been talking about it for a while is that it is the number one cardiovascular cancer of particularly of working dogs. So in our study of the nine 11 dogs of the dogs that developed cancer, whether they went to nine 11 or not, hemangiosarcoma was universally the most common, the breeds that we tend to use for working dogs, um, Labradors, German Shepherds, golden. Retrievers. They are all very high risk for hemangio. Um, and we have lost several of the dogs in our program, as well as several of the, the companion or the, the partners of our, our working dog handlers historically have been through this having worked in the emergency room for the first, you know, 20 years of my career, the devastation of having a dog that was fine. Two hours. Two hours ago and collapsed. And now you give them this really horrible prognosis. There's just a whole lot of need. Um, it's definitely a silent killer. It definitely, it, it ticked all the boxes of, if we're going to, if we're going to do this, this is, this is the one that we're going to tackle first. Wow. I lost my first dog to hemangiosarcoma. I was, I had another career. I wasn't a veterinarian then. And so, you know, whenever something happens to your first dog, you always follow that disease. The rest of your life. And to be honest, I don't see that we've made that many strides in a diagnosing it or treating it. And that's why I was so excited when I read your paper, because I thought, boy, if there was something we could do to pick that up early, it would be a godsend. Wow. You know, Janet, I was walking down to the mailbox with Muncho. This was my first dog. Yeah. And we're walking and he just falls over. Short for Munchkin because he was like this big. It was the hound mix. Yeah. From, from New Jersey. And, and he just fell over and I went, oh my God, he's dead. And after 20 seconds, he stood back up. And, and I had just gotten into vet school. And of course I did everything I was told. We had the surgery, blah, blah. And I have to tell you three months after the surgery, the cutaneous lesions, he was peppered with them and, and it was, it was not good. Yeah. Wasn't that what my Shaggy had? Yours had a mast cell tumor on the, on the digit. Yeah. And let me tell you, it was a non veterinarian that those, whatever they're called, just started popping up. It was like, you couldn't stop it. It was so tragic. It was, and he was what? 10. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I'm just curious. Do they, A, do they ever have a bad day? And if you guys aren't feeling well, are, do they kind of come around you? Like what's wrong? What's going on with you today? Do you ever notice that? Yeah. So actually it was. It was funny because all of my PhD work was on smelling psychological stress and proving that dogs could smell it. And so we do notice there's almost like a test effect where, because we have community science owners. So the dog's actual owner will come into the room and give the dog the treats and be part of the process, but we're all blinded obviously. So we don't know where the sample is or which one's right. But on test days, the dog's performance would sometimes drop, even though nothing else had changed. We've gotten them used to blinded testing. So we're beginning to mess around with not even really telling the owners that it was a test because we, I do think that, you know, and it's maybe our body language. I can't say that it's for sure just the olfaction signals, but you know, maybe we're nervous, but I do think the dogs kind of pick up when it's like, this one's really important versus just a normal training session. Everyone's relaxed. So we have tried to kind of minimize the difference between a training and a test session. So that the dogs don't kind of pick up on these differences and, and feel different. And then in terms of having a bad day, they definitely do, which is why I think we would love to be able to move to kind of an automated test for the scale up for now. It's still like they're the gold standard. And so we've got to keep working with them until we can figure out how they're doing it. But they do sometimes have off days. Either it precedes them. Like maybe they're not feeling very well, if there's any kind of respiratory thing that they have going on. We know that really impacts olfaction. Sometimes if there was one of our dogs, we found out Lita had kind of a bad back, which now we manage. But when that was bothering him, he may not make the, you know, just, it's like me being asked to do a really complicated math exam when I have a really bad headache, you know, I might not be able to do it to the best of my capacity. So we do see some variability, but usually it's kind of points in time. As the training's going, we see a certain standard and then if the dog's not meeting that standard, we think, hmm, let's see what's going on today. And then usually we can figure out why. So usually. it is kind of tied to some of these health things or that kind of stuff. Don't talk about with power or do you want me to talk? So our next step is to work. We're working with chemists and engineers down at Texas tech university who, who are just amazing. And they've been running the samples that we used in the published study through their, their machines. So these are kind of gas chromatography and those types of machines to pull out what's in each sample. And that's been really exciting to begin to get a picture of what possibly the dogs could be picking up on. Like I said, just knowing the list doesn't necessarily give you the perceptual piece, but it's a step forward. So that would be kind of the blueprint of defining which chemicals may be the kind of mangosarcoma signature. The keyword there is signature because it's not, unfortunately going to be just one or two. It's going to be the way that they talk to each other in combination. But still, this is the kind of best way if you want to look at specific chemicals to, to, to move forward. What, once that's been established, they're working on creating something called a mimic or a pseudo odor. And that means that they're going to try and replicate what we found and create a kind of soup or a magic potion. We're then going to, we're going to give that back to the dogs who are proficient on the real smell and see whether we can get anything that's close enough that when they see it, they say, yes, this is what I'm used to detecting as mangosarcoma. So that's a kind of interesting way to still be using dogs as the gold standard, but help answer some of these questions on what is closest to their experience. And if we can find one that's pretty close, that might then be the framework for a blood test, or a urine test. I mean, we're doing blood right now, but it could really be any substrate where if you get these chemicals in this kind of a signature, let's flag this dog for further testing. Because again, we might not be using this as a be all end all diagnosis, but we don't have, people don't have the funds nor the inclination to put every dog through scans every year. That would be incredibly expensive and a waste of resources. But if you got a match on this, you know, very quick test, maybe then you would want, to go and do further screening and that could really help people catch it earlier than they're catching it right now. How do you know when a dog has like reached their limit? Like they need to retire, so to speak. Oh, yeah, we've had a couple of our dogs and I think especially with the med, so in our medical detection, because it's really, it's cognitively taxing. It's a lot of hard work. And so a lot of our dogs after five or six years, they just stop having fun doing their performance kind of goes down and we're like, guess what you have contributed so much. You now can go and lay on the couch for the rest of your life. So I think that that's, we sometimes have dogs where we, because this stuff is very complex, but then we have our UDC is kind of the most easy version, but we could also do, easier versions of like, you know, just the Hemangio in the lineup and then two empty boxes. You know, we have those kinds of checks and balances. And if a dog who used to be very proficient is now not reliably giving us the answer on some of those easier questions, that's a really good tell that for whatever reason, they're not kind of interested in participating anymore. One of the dogs in our current study who was in the published paper is about to turn 13 and she's incredibly up for it and just loves it and is showing us great performance. And so we know that as dogs age, kind of their olfactory system does begin to decline. They're going to lose some of those receptors, but she's still very proficient. So it's very interesting to see. But then, you know, like I said, at a certain point, she'll probably, we might see that decline, but we can't predict the age that it's going to happen because it seems to be very independent, like aging gracefully. Now they're not allowed to be on any medication. They're not allowed to be on any medications, right? Oh, gosh, because don't some medications interfere with your olfactory. So that's not allowed to be on any medications is probably an overstatement because what we find is if a dog has arthritic pain, then putting them on pain meds actually improves their performance. And there are some drugs that do interfere with olfaction, but there's not a lot that we have evidence that, that truly do impair olfaction. So we've, you know, certainly all of our drugs, our dogs are on monthly preventatives and that hasn't been an issue. We've had dogs that have been on gabapentin and trazodone because we need to like have them resting quietly if they have an injury, but it doesn't seem to necessarily impair their olfaction that when we haven't tested systematically, there are a few things that we have tested systematically. So what we will do, and, and this would even be true of, you know, veterinarians that are out there prescribing medication for working dogs. I mean, anything that we prescribe could have the potential to impact it. There is a study on metronidazole, but it's a, it's a doses that I don't use. So 25 milligrams per kilogram twice a day, which is getting real close to the neurotoxic dose has been shown to decrease the sensitivity of the dog's nose, which is the most common thing that has happened in some of the dogs tested. But even, you know, it's just there's, there's lots of things out there. What we would recommend is if we're doing anything, even an anesthesia or some surgical procedure, if that is a drug detection dog, a bomb, especially a bomb detection dog, we don't want to interfere with any of their sensitivity. Have the handlers do a test with the dog with their, their training aid and make sure the dog is performing at the expected level. Our best bet. If all of the dogs were trained on this universal detection compound, the UDC, then they could, they could calibrate their dog before they went out. But unfortunately that, you know, that's not a widely available process. So we just have to evaluate the dog, make sure that anything we do as veterinarians doesn't impair their performance and really have that conversation with the handlers. Because we know just even sometimes the emotional side, the emotional stress of being in the veterinary hospital, the dog might not be on their game for 24 hours or, or more. Wow. So, Dr. Otto, did you work with the famous 9/11 dog, Brittany? Yes. I love Brittany. The golden. She's golden. And the last of the 9/11 dogs that in our study, she was, she was, I think she was 16. She had her sweet 16th birthday up in New York. And yeah, she was, she was a fabulous dog. We had one of the first puppies in our program was named after her and it was a golden. And that golden was a successful diabetes alert dog. That was one of very few diabetes alert dogs that we trained. But, but. She's famous in New York. Like, like we also have the famous pale male, the hawk. Oh. It's, I live outside and it's very famous. And actually now pale male's former girlfriend has a partner and is back in the nest, like on Park Avenue. So that was in the news this week. I know it's kind of a groupie thing here, but Brittany was also like a famous New Yorker, so to speak. I love the name. It's spelled Britannia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We need to know what pets you guys have. We want to know. Do you want to talk about Vauk? Well, yeah, so Vauk is my foster dog. She's a black lab. She's in the, she's one of the dogs in the study. She's five years old now. I'm not, I'm surprised that's not her barking in the background. We're using very high energy, but she's a fabulous dog. And she actually has a strong preference for my husband. Or maybe they have a strong preference for each other because they, you know, but they're, they're lovely. They're absolutely lovely. And so she is currently my only pet. And so I'm really excited to have her as my pet. That said, I do have a very special relationship with a wild black vulture that comes and visits me. We interact and I've actually trained him to do some agility, which is really silly. Like at home? In my back. Yeah. I live on several acres. And so he comes and visits. Tim's Pet Food. Until next time, keep asking questions, keep learning and keep loving your pets. I live in a little town in Ohio where the buzzards come back every year, Hinkley, Ohio, but I've yet to train one. They're very smart and they do. They very much enjoy the interaction, which is interesting. I would have never known. At OSU when I was in raptor rehab, we had a couple of vultures in and they just kind of plod around and we like get in there in that bottom cage. I enjoyed working with them. Yeah. Yeah. They're fascinating. Absolutely. Dr. Wilson, do you have any pets? I do. So, um, I'm, like I said, I'm about four years into my time in America. back home i have a dog with my parents um who's a red fox labrador he actually was kind of a wash out from a bio detection program back in the uk for environmental sensitivities but he's a very lovely pet dog he just said no thank you to being a service dog which was fair enough uh he's a little nervous so he's back at home with my parents he's now kind of primarily my parents dog here i work with a lot of dogs because outside of the postdoc where we were also dogs all day i work as a certified applied animal behaviorist so i'm kind of with client dogs throughout the week so across all that and thinking you know maybe i'll go back to the uk one day i've decided no personal dogs while i'm here but i do have a cat um and i've trained him to do the fitness program that we do here i've trained him to do nose work i walk him outside on a leash so i've made him into a dog um but it's easier with a cat to leave you know while he's so busy during the day but dogs are definitely in my future well dr otto i have a male cat that literally does this to me and loves my husband and two sons so figure that one out you get there now yeah he comes up to me if he wants to go outside because i have a hand to open the door other than that he's like get away but speaking of cats and i know we've got to wrap it up but remember the story a few years ago about the cat that lived in the nursing home and would go and sit in front of one of the doors of the nursing home and i'm one of the residents who wasn't going to make it yeah yeah that'll be the next project good luck with that one with cats i was going to say cats are very capable they're just not always willing they don't want to right it's always their day off and this one here the high energy golden right there when you're seeing an exercise program she's going no she's very she's usually very active we had with bunny this morning that the cat got oh it was on his head and she was with the cat female cat who's fabulous and then the dog took the bunny and i'm like you're not coming back in the house with that she didn't do anything with it she just okay okay and then donald took care of that but anyway so we have our guest question okay so let's start with um dr wilson what is your pet or human peeve probably dominance theory and people who don't always like understand that when dogs are doing something it is working for them in some way rather than them being like naughty or trying to annoy you i think people ascribing dogs as being like stubborn or doing something to annoy the owner that bugs me because i just think that's a strange way to look at your own animal listen in listen in and dr auto what is your pet or human peeve um i pet peeve is probably obesity um in our our canines because we know that it um it shortens their lives it's it's not it's not food it's not love um and so especially as a sports medicine veterinarian uh keeping our dogs moving and keeping them physically fit is is absolutely front and center yeah they don't open the the refrigerator door we're the ones that open it right or the treat jar janet when we're off camera i gotta read to you the list of treats that they used in the study oh well i love that i actually use the kibble bits yeah yeah i figured they have nutrition i mean you taught me that although we do have some special you know treats yeah uh well i'll make one comment about kibble and i don't use it all the time we have had puppies in particular we had one puppy choke on a piece of kibble um we almost lost it so it's really important when our when our puppies because they they kind of look up and are high and it goes right down the the wrong the wrong pipe um and that that puppy ended up in the icu for almost a week and we're just so lucky to um have him come back to the program and then go on to be a search and rescue dog but i always when we're giving especially the puppies and they're eager and they're reaching up thinking about um the way we deliver those treats is really important a lot of times we'll just drop them on the ground and let them pick them up off the ground because i never thought of that that's they're golfing you're so excited right yeah this has been just absolutely fascinating appreciate the work you all are doing it's amazing it's a big wow so thank you so much for tuning in with us today and being our guest and alice what did you want to say oh i just i'm in awe because i think dogs helping other dogs there's nothing better than that you know we're fixated on dogs helping humans but they do so much for us i'm so glad that i'm just so honored to meet you both i i just i was so looking forward to this it's fascinating fascinating thank you so much so we're going to say goodbye for today don't forget to tune in listen share and alice what about our website oh yeah uh don't forget don't forget if you have any comments questions or even leave us a message sop uh soppodcast.com speaking of that thanks hey thanks for watching and listening we like likes don't forget to like share and subscribe you can follow us on social media at speaking of pets and give your pets a big kiss from from the novotny sisters the speaking of pets podcast is an sla video production