Cancer Sniffed Out By Pet Collie

Maureen Burns became worried when her normally boisterous Collie Cross called Max started acting out of character. Max had started moping about the house and she became worried that he was ill.

It was only when Max started sniffing her breath and nudging her gently on the breast, when she decided to check herself and found a small lump. She visited her local GP who later found the lump to be a cancerous tumour.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, she said: ”I felt a lump and I wasn’t unduly worried as I’d had a lump 20 years ago and it had proved to be benign. I’d also had a routine mammogram which came back negative 15 months earlier. As I felt it I just looked over at Max, who was lying on my bed. Our eyes met and I just remember him looking so sad. I knew in that instant something was badly wrong.”

When the nurse told her she had breast cancer, Mrs Burns’ first response was ”I know, my dog told me. I expected her to laugh but instead she told me she had heard of similar cases before.”

There have been many cases where dogs have ‘sniffed out’ diseases in people, such as cancer.

Mrs Burns had an operation to remove the lump and the results came back all clear.

Mrs Burns told the Mailonline how her other dog Grace, a Greyhound had not acted no differently but when she arrived home after her operation, Max had started acting like a puppy again.