11 Remarkable Things Your Dog’s Senses Can Do That Yours Can’t

With the right training, dogs can learn to detect cancer by the chemical signatures that tumor cells release. These aren’t exotic, specially bred animals, either. The nonprofit In Situ Foundation has trained more than 50 dogs to sniff out cancer, drawing on shelter and rescue dogs whenever possible. Training runs about eight months, during which the dogs work through breath, saliva, urine and plasma samples sent in by doctors. After sampling several hundred, a trained dog can reliably tell a healthy sample from a cancerous one.