{"id":6561,"date":"2026-03-17T06:44:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T06:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/?p=6561"},"modified":"2026-03-17T06:44:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T06:44:21","slug":"her-dog-wouldnt-stop-sniffing-her-breath-she-thought-it-was-weird-but-it-saved-her-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/?p=6561","title":{"rendered":"Her dog wouldn\u2019t stop sniffing her breath. She thought it was weird but it saved her life."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dogs can be weird. Any dog owner will tell you that, but typically their shenanigans are just personality quirks. Unfortunately for Colleen Ferguson of Kent, England, her dog\u2019s weird behavior wasn\u2019t just a silly personality thing. For several weeks, Ferguson\u2019s German Shepherd was obsessively sniffing her mouth. This was a new behavior that she found\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dogs can be weird<\/a>. Any dog owner will tell you that, but typically their shenanigans are just personality quirks. Unfortunately for Colleen Ferguson of Kent, England, her dog\u2019s weird behavior<\/a> wasn\u2019t just a silly personality thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For several weeks, Ferguson\u2019s German Shepherd was obsessively sniffing her mouth. This was a new behavior that she found quite odd. The dog, Inca, was only two years old, but she seemed to know something was wrong with her owner and was doing her best to let her know. Inca constantly sniffed around Ferguson\u2019s mouth and frowned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"german<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The dog\u2019s persistence caused the then 60-year-old woman to become concerned, which led her to the dentist. Everything checked out fine, but Inca was still frowning after sniffing Ferguson\u2019s mouth. This prompted Ferguson to visit her doctor to be tested for other things that might change the smell of her breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Medical News Today<\/em><\/a>, diabetes can cause the breath to smell differently. Gluten intolerance and Celiac disease can also cause bad breath, according to Imperial Dental Center<\/a>. Ferguson was cleared of any gut-related issues after tests from her doctor. Yet Inca would not stop telling her something was wrong. Growing more concerned about her dog\u2019s new behavior, Ferguson decided to do a full-body scan to rule out anything unusual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHer behavior towards me changed, she just started homing in on my mouth. Every time she could get a sniff of my mouth she would frown,\u201d Ferguson told The Mirror<\/em><\/a>. \u201cShe just had this focused intent on my mouth, and you couldn\u2019t push her away until you had done an outbreath. When she got that she would give me such a look and walk away. In no way did I expect lung cancer at all. It was such a shock because I am a non-smoker, and because I taught biology, I was very anti-smoking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turns out, Inca was trying to tell her she had a tumor growing in her lungs. Thanks to the dog\u2019s keen nose and insistent behavior, Ferguson was able to catch the cancer early. Before long, the science teacher was off to surgery, where doctors removed a golf-ball-sized tumor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"german<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe surgeon said\u2026\u2019that dog saved your life. We never catch it at stage one,\u2019\u201d Ferguson told the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This remarkable discovery took place in 2015, and since then scientists have been working on recreating a nose like Inca\u2019s. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is currently developing an \u201ce-nose<\/a>,\u201d a mechanical nose that scientists are training with AI to detect cancer. They have moved to the trial phase, testing more than 500 urine samples to see if the artificial nose is as accurate as a dog\u2019s nose in detecting cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Andreas Mershin, a quantum physicist, developed the device that will be used to screen donated urine samples. The samples were prescreened by Medical Detection Dogs, and the results of the e-nose will be compared with those of the dogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"german<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a major milestone,\u201d Mershin told Medical Detection Dogs<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ve worked to emulate the dogs\u2019 abilities and train machines in a similar way\u2014rewarding them for correct identifications. It\u2019s like giving our devices a new sense: a nose. Phones already have eyes and ears, but machine olfactors are the next frontier in health technology and AI sensing. This could transform the world of diagnosis, screening, and early detection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the e-nose is currently designed to detect prostate cancer, once it\u2019s perfected, the mechanical nose will hopefully detect other cancers as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ferguson, for one, is thankful that her dog\u2019s nose detected her lung cancer early, giving her a renewed chance at life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was just so lucky,\u201d she told The Mirror<\/em>. \u201cEvery day is special with her. To catch it at stage one is just remarkable. I don\u2019t know how I would have survived with radiotherapy and chemotherapy. She saved me a lot of fuss. It was meant to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dogs can be weird. Any dog owner will tell you that, but typically their shenanigans are just personality quirks. Unfortunately for Colleen Ferguson of Kent,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/653709250_1402574311903556_5390745692938254519_n.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6563,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6561\/revisions\/6563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorsidehub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}