In addition to every other way dogs enrich people’s lives, their uncanny sense of smell can detect disease in their human friends.

Take cancer in people. With most forms of cancer, early detection is the key to survival. But many times physicians can’t detect cancer in a patient until it has already spread.

That’s where dogs come in. Certain dogs can pick up the so-called odor signature of a cancer before it is medically detectable. These dogs are trained to sniff out smaller and smaller amount of the cancer until they are able to pinpoint minute volumes.

In addition, some dogs can sniff out pending seizures in epileptics, low blood sugar levels in diabetics and even potentially life-threatening infections.

This super-cool canine trait is just another example of dogs ably serving as man’s best friend.