More Dog News

Here's something that I bet you didn't know about dogs:  they can smell diseases.  Dogs have been trained to identify people with diabetes, certain cancers, malaria and many other diseases.  Now, an attempt is being made to see if dogs can smell a corona virus infection.  Just think of it!  It's the first big football game of the fall but there are lingering fears that some people may still have the virus and be contagious.  Each person going into the stadium has to sniffed by a trained dog.  No blood tests.  No nasal swabs.  The only thing that happens is that a dog smells you.  As a result, a few people are taken aside to get one of those Abbott 15 minute tests to confirm what the dog smelled.  In that way someone who is infected but doesn't know it can be sent home to self quarantine, thereby protecting all the others who went to the game.

This may sound far fetched, but anyone who has ever gone through customs after flying in from abroad knows that there are often dogs in the reception area who are there to sniff out drugs.  Once, my wife was fingered (pawed?) by a drug dog and she had to open her bag to show the feds her collection of vitamins and supplements that she had taken on the trip.  It's an easy way to check people without any intrusion.  Right now, trained dogs are just as accurate at detecting diseases like diabetes and malaria as the medical equipment used otherwise.  And don't forget, you can't pet the lab equipment.

It would also be great if we could have health workers on the streets of big cities just walking with their dogs looking for people who are asymptomatic.  It's mass testing without all the fuss and cost.