There are numerous studies out there that show that people with a dog as a pet tend to live longer and there are reasons for that and perhaps reasons you may not be aware of.

The leading killer of both men and women in the United States is heart disease. The cause of each person’s heart disease can take on many facets. It can be due to poor diet, lack of exercise, genetic issues (family history), other medical conditions and especially stress.

I recall a few years ago reading a scientific study that said that petting a dog 10 minutes a day can relieve a lot of stress and thus help you live longer. Sitting down helps relieve stress, but the petting and loving on your dog is reported to be a great de-stresser. Besides, dogs are pack animals and giving them that attention helps them with their social standing (you should be the alpha to them) and it helps them cope better with others in the house.

We’ve all heard accounts of dogs alerting owners to house fires and helping family members get safely out of the house.

I used to know a family who live in California whose dog always warned them several minutes before an earthquake hit. The dog even detected minor earthquakes. His alarm gave the family time to find a safe place in case the earthquake was a strong one. In 1994, their dog gave them warning almost 5 minutes before the big Northridge earthquake struck. The family had time to get out of their home into open ground which as a good thing because their house pretty much collapsed.

My oldest daughter developed left temporal lobe partial seizures as an adult. At the time, she had a male Maltese named Sherlock. We discovered that Sherlock tried to let her know just before a seizure was about strike. There are many reports of dogs letting their owners know of an impending seizure and even some specially trained dogs that not only let their owners know, but would get the owner on the ground and lay on them during their seizure.

Of course, we know of other service dogs who help the blind, the deaf and many who suffer from PTSD or other anxiety disorders. Besides all the tasks the dogs are trained to do, they offer an assurance and calming that is invaluable.

There are dogs that have been trained to sniff out drugs, cadavers and explosives. A number of explosive sniffing dogs are used by our military and many police departments, but these dogs have spent months in intense training.

But what about your dog who hasn’t been trained? Could he or she be trying to tell you that you have cancer, even before anyone else has diagnosed it?

Check out how one dog not only sniffed out her owner’s cancer, but then did it two more times:

“A Marine veteran is crediting the Siberian husky she inherited from her Air Force son in 2011 with helping to save her life after the dog sniffed out ovarian cancer three times. Stephanie Herfel, of Wisconsin, told the Journal Sentinel that it first happened in 2013 when the dog, named Sierra, began acting strangely around her.”

“‘She put her nose on my lower belly and sniffed so intently that I thought I spilled something on my clothes,’ Herfel, who had been experiencing abdominal pain, told the news outlet. ’She did it a second and then a third time. After the third time, Sierra went and hid. I mean hid’.”

“With the dog cowering in the closet, Herfel made her way to the emergency room where she was diagnosed with an ovarian cyst, but Sierra’s strange behavior pushed the 52-year-old to make an appointment with her gynecologist. A few weeks later she was diagnosed with stage 3C ovarian cancer and underwent a full hysterectomy. She lost her spleen and continued with chemotherapy until April 2014, according to the Journal Sentinel…”

“In 2015, Sierra began acting strangely again, which Herfel later discovered was because her cancer had returned. It happened for the third time in 2016.”

“‘Sierra smelled my cancer not only the first time by smelling my belly and hiding, but hid on my two reoccurrences where my scan showed an area of suspicion and I had to wait 3-4 months for another scan to confirm – she was right!’ Herfel wrote in a Facebook post about gratitude on Nov. 28.”

If you have a dog, pay attention to the way it pays attention to you or to others in your house. If you notice anything out of the ordinary or unusually intense, follow up and find out why. Your dog just may be trying to tell you or loved ones something important and could be saving your life.