Dog managed to tell husband and wife that they both had cancer
A wife and husband credit their pup for saving their lives after seemingly being able to detect the presence of cancer.
Chase Johnson, 36, and Ben Byrn, 48, from California in the US, noticed their dog, a Labrador retriever mix called Ceto, starting to act in a strange way, but couldn’t have known it was because of their health troubles until discovering the link.
The second to be diagnosed was Chase, who revealed their pup became ‘anxious’ and started ‘whimpering’ when he was around her in January 2021.
But it all made sense shortly after the behaviour began.
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Chase revealed how the dog got ‘all worked up’ weeks later and bumped her left breast with his nose – which hurt.
Chase said: "Ceto is a pretty calm dog; he never gets anxious and is always pretty chill.
"A couple of weeks before I found the lump, he followed me around the house, would pace the room, whimpering and became really anxious.
"We were trying to figure out what was going on, until he got so worked up one day and poked his nose to my breast.”
When feeling around, Chase discovered a lump which later turned out to be triple-negative breast cancer - an aggressive form of cancer that required chemotherapy, radiotherapy, a lumpectomy and lymph node removal.
"If he had not done that, I would not have found it,” Chase admitted.
Shockingly, Chase’s oncologist told her that if she hadn’t gone to the doctors when she did, she might not have survived.
Typically, they say lightning never strikes twice, but Ben had actually been the first person Ceto alerted to in the home when he began showing the same behaviours.
As it turned out, Ben had colon cancer, which is why Chase knew their dog was warning them that something was wrong for the second time.
Chase said: "Ceto had always been my little shadow; we are very much bonded together.
"We were trying to figure out what was going on. Previously, Ceto had alerted Ben to the fact that he had cancer.
"So when he started feeling anxious again, we knew he was warning one of us, and my husband just had a clear scan, so we knew it was me."
Currently, Chase is taking part in a Cleveland Clinic clinical trial for a breast cancer vaccine to prevent its occurrence.
She’s part of the Phase 1 crew which hopes to bring more insights into alternative medicine for the cancer type.
Topics: Bowel cancer, Cancer, Health, US News, Dogs
Britt Jones