The Queen has remarked that Clarence House is “becoming a second home” for cancer-detecting dogs, following a visit from two specially trained canines at the royal residence. Camilla descended the stairs on Tuesday morning to greet golden Labrador Jodie and fox red Labrador Florin in the hallway.
Dogs’ Training and Abilities
Florin, aged 11, has been trained to detect prostate cancer, while nine-year-old Jodie can identify bowel cancer. The Queen, who has been patron of the Medical Detection Dogs charity since 2014, watched as Jodie demonstrated her skill by identifying the disease among four urine samples.
Camilla was also introduced to an “electronic nose” device designed to replicate the diagnostic capabilities of the animals. However, she expressed her belief that “nature will always lead the way” and that “we’re always going to need the dogs.”
Call for More Visits
Following the demonstration and speeches, Camilla requested that the dogs be brought back to Clarence House soon, stating: “I think it’s becoming a second home for the dogs. We’ve had so many people here, and a lot of sceptical people who come and have gone away transformed.”
Acknowledging lingering scepticism about this medical use of canines, she added: “We’ll just have to bring more people back here… and more dogs.”
Meeting Wolfie
The Queen also met Wolfie, a six-year-old black Labrador trained to alert his owner, Lucy Burls, before a spike in symptoms of her Postural Tachycardia Syndrome (PoTS). Ms Burls, 39, explained that Wolfie typically alerts her by making eye contact, but if her condition worsens, he rests his head on her lap.
Ms Burls told the Press Association that Camilla was surprised to learn Wolfie can travel with her on planes and even speedboats for holidays, and that he particularly enjoys double-decker buses.
The Electronic Nose
The electronic nose device was developed by the charity in collaboration with Dr Andreas Mershin from RealNose.AI. Dr Mershin placed the technology in the Queen’s hands and blew into it to demonstrate its scent-detection ability. Camilla joked that the dogs were far faster, taking only about four seconds, whereas the machine takes approximately 10 minutes to detect cancer.
Dr Mershin commented: “The dogs are leading, they’re still beating us on every metric, however we have to start somewhere and the best thing is to compete against them.”
The Queen responded: “Nature will always lead the way. However brilliant, as the machine is, we’re always going to need the dogs.” She told the engineer: “It’s fascinating, thank you very much… I shall look forward to an update.”
