Dogs foretell imminent illness episodes in humans

HIS ARTICLE of mine will surely raise quite a few eyebrows, and generate much response. Some readers will point out how their pet dogs, horses, cats, rabbits or goldfish are able to sense the physical discomfort in their owner family members and warn them about it. Others will roast me for having written some titillating stuff of parascience. But it is time that we bring this matter out from the closet! This decision was triggered by an e-mail that my brother-in-law Mr. K. Subramanian sent me from Chennai alerting about a note that has appeared in the 23 June issue of the British Medical Journal.(BMJ).One Dr. Vivian Edwards, former medical officer in maternity and child health, Newhaven, East Sussex, UK, describes here an incident that led her to believe that "power of healing does not lie solely in human hands".

She writes about how she was approached by a lady who had recently lost her husband and thus in great distress. Despite all efforts, there seemed no way for Dr. Edwards to pierce the shell of suffering with which the lady had surrounded herself. There was the real danger that she might even take her life in despair. It was at this moment that Dr. Edwards turned to Kim, her pet Belgian Shepherd dog, who was watching silently. She gazed at him appealingly and his response was swift. He went over to the distressed visitor, gently encircled her waist, rested his head snugly on her lap and fixed his eyes on her. Slowly she lifted her head until her eyes met his, tears rolled down her cheek while she clasped his warm clinging body and slowly opened her mouth into a smile. The doctor and her dog became listeners as words began flowing at last. In the months that followed, Kim remained her constant source of comfort and encouragement, her healing touch. Dr. Edwards says that she has since learnt to use her dog to help others in distress.

Dr. Edward's account followed an earlier one in the Christmas 2000 issue of BMJ by Dr. Gareth Williams and his associates from the Liverpool University Hospital. In this paper, they report three case histories in each of which a pet dog sensed an imminent physiological condition (hypoglycemia) in their owners and warned them ahead of time to take proper treatment.Dogs forewarn owners of impending health risk

In the first case, a 66- year- old lady with type 2 diabetes (needing insulin) has been experiencing frequent hypoglycemic episodes, with excessive sweating, general weakness, anxiety and irritability. These attacks occur in the evenings and she takes quick corrective action. Over the last year, she found her 9-year-old mongrel dog, Candy, behaving unusually. Every so often Candy jumps up, runs out of the room and hides herself under a chair. She comes out of this stereotype behaviour only when the lady patient has taken some carbohydrate to gain strength. Candy acts in this way well before the patient is aware of any hypoglycemic symptoms.

The second case report describes a similar `early warning' ability of another pet dog, a 7-year-old mongrel called Susie who nudges her mistress, a 47- year- old woman with hypoglycemic episodes. Susie senses the impending distress of her owner who does not herself realise it since she is fast asleep. Susie wakes her up and forces her to eat some carbohydrate and her symptoms settle. On other occasions, this pet dog refuses her favourite chocolate and prevents her owner from leaving home until she has taken food to correct hypoglycemia. During most of these episodes, the patient has initially been unaware that she is getting to be slow in sugar. Neither is her husband, who has been sleeping through it all.

And in case 3, the same type of alarm is raised by a 3-year-old golden retriever called Natt, who senses the coming of a hypoglycemic episode in his owner, even before she realises it. His way of alerting her is different from those of Candy and Susie. He paces up and down and puts his head on her lap to do so. At nights, he barks and scrabbles against the bedroom door.

When dogs publish scientific papers!

Professor Gareth Williams and his colleagues Mimi Chen and Mark Daly, who describe the work of these three dogs in this matter, are so impressed with this life- saving ability of these dogs that they decided to honour them by including their names in the paper that they have written. BMJ, in all fairness, thought it appropriate, and the paper has Natt, Susie and Candy as coauthors! This is one of those rare cases where a scientific publication has been authored by nonhumans! Appearing as it does in the Christmas issue of the journal, which also has other reports, some light- hearted and some of them even mildly risque, the paper by Chen, Daly, Natt, Susie, Candy and Williams may be taken by some readers to be `tongue-in-cheek' or a Christmas prank, which has spun a plausible situation into a credible scientific report.

Are these instances of dogs acting as a friendly early warning system true enough to be taken seriously and be rigorously researched into, or is the report in the spirit of "Tis the season to be Jolly, Tra la la"? Judging from the responses that BMJ received, both types of reactions have occurred.

Drs. Pochard, Levy, Azoulay and Chevret from Saint-Louis University, Paris, France make fun of this report from England, in a typically France vs England manner of friendly leg pulling; they think the whole thing is a spoof. On the other hand, Dr. Ray Markus of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association says that he keeps on receiving more and more similar descriptions of such unexplained animal communications under a variety of circumstances. He feels that we may be missing something by not furthering research into this valuable field. And Mr. Val Strong of the British charity organization called `Support Dogs', which trains dogs to assist people with a variety of disabilities, says that caution must be exercised in promoting the use of dogs as early warning alarm systems of human ailments. His organization has successfully trained dogs to sense hypoglycemia in their owners and alert them ahead of time.

Dr. Strong and his colleagues SW Brown and R Walker have also published a paper in the journal Seizure in 1999 about training `seizure-alert dogs'. The animals were able to offer overt signals to their owners as early as 15-45 minutes before a seizure occurs. Each dog had an accurate prediction time and in each case, the owner's seizure frequency was reduced. However, he points out that caution must be exercised in promoting the use of dogs in this way, since in the absence of specialised training, they may respond unpredictably and may even behave aggressively towards its owner (for example in instances of epilectic seizures). He suggests that dogs must be carefully selected and then specifically trained for the work they do. It is not difficult - takes about 6 months to train a dog for a specialised role - but training is vital for the safety of both the human and the animal.

This is how dogs are trained and used as guides to blind people, and to detect and rescue people lost in mountains. How do these pet animals sense an imminent symptom in their owners? The most obvious answer that comes to mind is the powerful sense of smell that dogs are blessed with. It is this ability of dogs that is used by the investigative agencies to sniff out drugs, agricultural contraband, explosives and the like, and in tracking victims or criminals. But this does not seem all. They sense muscle tremors or behavioural alterations as well.

Pets as comfort givers and stress relievers

And they comfort by petting and being petted. Kim, the pet dog of Dr. Vivian Edwards, was able to comfort the distraught widow by hugging and looking her in the eye. (As Charlie Brown says in the comic strip 'Peanuts', about his pet dog Snoopy, happiness is a warm puppy). There are reports in medical literature that talking to and petting a dog lowers your blood pressure and reduces the risk of stroke. About a dozen years ago, Drs JK Vormbrook and JM Grossberg of the University of South Caroline tested out this "pet effect" on 60 male and female college. As they were asked to see, pet and talk to a dog, their blood pressure and heart beat rates were monitored. The BP levels were lowest during dog petting, higher while talking to the dog and highest while talking to the experimenter. Likewise, the heart rates were lower while talking to or touching the dog and higher while both touching and talking to it. Touching appeared to be the major component of the pet effect. (It would therefore be interesting to do a survey of the incidence of hypertension in a community of age-matched and living-style-matched people and check if pet owners, and dog owners in particular, are at lower risk).

Are these abilities restricted to dogs or do other animals do so as well? Dolphins are reported to have the healing touch as well. There are instances of paraplegic and similarly disabled children improving in their locomotor abilities when they are helped to swim or even float in water, with a dolphin attending to them. There is the case of an autistic child who, after swimming with a friendly dolphin, spoke his first word: "good"! Professional literature is not as rich with well-documented cases of the healing touch of other animals. Owners of cats as pets claim that they are comforted by their presence and their pranks though some suggest this to be a one-sided affair; cats seem to have a mind of their own, with none of the loyalty that dogs display.

There is the occasional talk of animals possessing a 'sixth sense' which we mere men and women have not. However, this is not a well- researched topic and still remains in the realm of the speculative and unproven. Some point out to the presence of the vomeronasal organ in some animals (dogs, cats and even elephants) located in the roof of the mouth. Two small openings just behind the front teeth connect it to the outside air. The animal sucks in air though the mouth in order to sense it through the vomeronasal organ, which acts thus as another smell-type organ. To what extent this is of use as a detection device, and how prevalent it is in all animals, and what use is it put to are topics that need to be studied in detail, before we jump to conclusions. Otherwise, we might become the victims of the well- aimed barbs of Pochard and colleagues from Saint Louis University!

D. Balasubramanian

L V Prasad Eye Institute

Hyderabad - 500 034

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