Joanna Gardiner gave us a really interesting talk on the work of the Medical Detection Dogs charity which began in 2008.
It was fascinating to learn how the acutely sensitive sense of smell of dogs is being harnessed to detect life threatening medical conditions such as cancer, parkinsons disease and malaria and to protect people living with complex health conditions which leaves them vulnerable to potentially fatal medical events.
The dogs can often detect life threatening medical conditions much sooner – and much faster – than conventional tests.
And in many cases, a detection dog can make the difference for someone from being totally housebound to being able to lead a more or less normal life.
Joanna very successfully portrayed the dogs as highly intelligent and extremely capable detecting what they were trained to detect, whilst still being much-loved pets.
The value of this work is immense but the costs involved are considerable and are raised almost entirely from charitable donations. Although conversations with Government are taking place, their work is almost all supported be fund raising and charitable donations. For more dogs to be trained so that more people can be helped, fund-raising is going to be an on-going issue for this most-deserving of charities.
We are delighted that the fee for this talk was being donated to the charity and it was gratifying to note that many members took the opportunity to make their own personal contribution.
Click here to read more on the Medical Detection Dogs website.
Click here to make a donation to the Medical Detection Dogs charity.