One of our detector dog pups with a keen nose for adventure is embarking on a special mission to help save lives.
Nine-week-old Hogan, who's one of supermum Isla's latest litter of five pups, has been gifted to K9 Medical Detection NZ in Dunedin, where he’ll be trained to detect early signs of cancer in urine samples.
National Coordinator Police Dogs Inspector Todd Southall says he was humbled by the work founder and CEO Pauline Blomfield and her team are doing when he visited the charitable trust.
“It was a real eye-opener for me,” he says. “The fact that Pauline was working with scientists and identifying the odour from the cancer cells for prostate and bowel cancer and training the dogs to indicate on these was absolutely incredible.
“The impact of the work they are doing is remarkable in terms of trying to help people identify these cancers really early.
“It’s not something we normally do but gifting them a dog was the least we could do for their amazing, amazing work into cancer research and detection.”
Trying out his new K9 Medical Detection NZ coat.
Pauline says K9 Medical Detection NZ already had a connection with New Zealand Police, as Police looks after the safety of the community and her organisation tries to look after the health of the community.
“Getting Hogan really is amazing for us because it formalises the relationship we have with New Zealand Police,” she says.
“We’re creating a simple diagnostic urine test as a value-added tool to be used within the health system for the early detection of cancer.
“We feel very fortunate, very privileged, to have the opportunity to have such a genetically bred, working line puppy as Hogan, who we can take on for our cancer detection.”
Hogan’s training will be robust and his work methodical, so Pauline says they make sure all their dogs have good foster homes where they get lots of stimulation and enjoyable downtime.
“They have the perfect work/life balance,” she says. “Creating that is really important for the dogs so we can achieve the best from them.”
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You can find out more about Hogan’s new canine colleagues, here.