Kate- As a crazy dog person, you really should read "The Dogs of Babel" which an amazing read, particularly because it addresses that idea of teaching dogs to talk.

A beautiful, fascinating novel.

Kate Harding writes:

Swedish scientists don't believe it would be possible to use dogs in a clinical setting.

Why not? My GP has a very nice dog in her suite, usually in the waiting room, but sometimes in the examining rooms too.

I saw this on PBS (think it was NOVA – but can’t remember) about 15 years ago – I was fascinated then and I’ve been disappointed not to be hearing about this all the time. On that show they were experimenting with skin cancer. They used people who they knew had the cancer and the dog would sniff it out every time – in one instance the dog kept pointing out a mole that the doctor’s had checked out as ok – but wouldn’t you know months down the road they discovered it was in fact cancerous. They spoke to lots of nurses who swore up and down that the cancer ward has a particular smell too.

Oh, that book was so sad and kind of creepy but really good. The Dream Master is a really good sci-fi book in which one of the minor characters is a dog that has been given the power of speech, albeit rudimentary, and the few places where he writes about interactions with this dog are really fucking creepy, or so I thought. Then there's also Roog, a short story of Philip K Dick's. It's from the perspective of a dog, who can speak (at least in his perspective). If anyone can tell me what the hell that story is really about, I would be grateful.

My wife of 30 years died in December, 2007 from ovarian cancer. She was stage 4+ at diagnosis. A year or two earlier and she might have lived more than 2 1/2 years.

It might not be fair to the dogs. Who is going to keep an eye on them and walk them when they need to go to the bathroom? It would be costly to keep one staff person there just to handle a dog. Also, many people are allergic to dogs and service animal training takes a while and a careful selection of proper temperament to achieve a finished dog that will never bite or growl whatever the provocation. A good service dog price starts at about $6,000.

What would make sense would be mobile detecting units such as are now used in rural areas to screen for breast cancer. That would take the dog out of the clinical setting and put it in a circumstance that served both its needs and the needs of patients.

How can you help make this a reality? Keep in mind that not only do dogs have to be walked, fed, watered, and given affection, but that many city places are unfriendly to dogs. Even though service dogs are supposed to be legally allowed in motel rooms and restaurants, businesses often refuse to comply with the law. If the person handling the dog needs to eat lunch or enter a place of business -- the Starbucks in the bookstore at the mall let's say -- or go on a break or to go to the bathroom, he/she should be allowed to take the dog.

Support service animals! Support disability rights! Support a more open society! Maybe animals aren't people too, but they sure do a lot to help us out.

As a medical equipment provider I can tell you that my therapy dog comes to work with me everyday. She doesn't make a mess. She tells me when it's potty time and the people love her. Especially the elderly and the disabled. We have several elderly people that come in and just spend 15-30 minutes just petting her. We leave them alone so my dog can do what she does and they can have someone to make everything feel alright. Dogs in a medical setting isn't a problem. The problem is people's perception of them.

As for dogs talking. Well...you just have to listen

They are the best in the world. And AKA Smith, you are so right on. France has the dog thing right. They're everywhere there.

I saw the show about dogs detecting skin cancer, and also a show about a dog who discovered breast cancer in his owner -- he kept nudging and snuffling her breast every time she got close to him; she was annoyed and irritated at his behavior until she finally realized the dog was trying to tell her something.

Sadly, there is no way the obvious skills of dogs to detect all kinds of cancers will be harnessed unless and until our bloated "healthcare" industry can find a way to get its greedy paws all over it.

If it does, then, of course, look for these dogs to suddenly be very easily accommodated in clinical settings.

But it seems germane. On the morning that my wife died in December, I was just sitting with her holding her hand waiting for the end. We had had our last conversation. I gave her enough morphine to kill the pain and then waited. All of a suddent, our 4 Siberian huskies got up on our bed and put their paws on her. Two minutes later, she died. They knew, they knew. I have no idea how, but they did.

People have taught dogs to talk, but they are pretty limited by their anatomy, just as even the smartest chimps have to be taught sign language. Alexander Graham Bell, whose father ran Davidson's School for the Deaf in Edinburgh, had a dog that could talk just a little.

I am so sorry for your loss, Portlander. Animals really do know what is beyond human understanding. The thousands of animals of all species who ran for higher ground before the terrible tsunami a few years ago is just one of the better-known examples.

Call it knowledge, instinct, heightened sense, or even a form of godliness -- animals KNOW.

You might like reading about Oscar the cat, a nursing home resident who doesn't normally hang out with patients, but in the last hour of their lives jumps up on their bed to cuddle and comfort them -- with so much accuracy that the staff calls in the families to say their goodbyes based on Oscar's visits.

This is one of many Oscar links:

http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/aging/articles/2007/07/25/feline_intuition/