A charity which trains dog to save lives will increase its pawprint around the UK thanks to a boost from People’s Postcode Lottery.
Charity, Mental Detection Dogs, which trains dogs to save lives using their incredible sense of smell will receive a £250,000 boost from Postcode Animal Trust to help carry out even more life-saving work nationally.
Medical Alert Assistance Dogs are trained to alert people with complex health conditions when they are in danger of having a potentially life-threatening episode, so they can take the necessary action and prevent hospital admission.
The huge lottery boost will also enable the charity to fund instructors and support staff around the UK who will be able to offer more care for existing clients and help expand their service.
Medical Detection Dogs CEO, Claire Guest, said: “We are extremely thankful to players of People’s Postcode Lottery for helping us to further our work to train medical alert assistance dogs to save lives. The players’ kindness means we can better support our existing clients, increase the number of applications we can consider throughout the UK and raise awareness of our work.
“It also means that wherever you are in the UK, you can get involved with Medical Detection Dogs as we develop and grow our regional support groups.”
Medical Detection Dogs uses the amazing power of the dog’s nose to detect human diseases. The charity is also training bio dogs to detect diseases like cancer.
Because dogs are able to detect tidy odour concentrations, around one part per trillion (the equivalent of one teaspoon of sugar in two Olympic sized swimming pools), they can potentially detect diseases much earlier than is currently possible.
This pioneering work could help to speed up the diagnosis process and impact on thousands of lives. The charity received no government funding for its work and relies entirely on the generosity of donations from trust and the public.
Lisa Belletty from the charities team at People’s Postcode Lottery, said: “We are thrilled that players are able to support Medical Detection Dogs to reach more people with complex and life-threatening conditions. I’m looking forward to hearing about the partnerships that are formed between these amazing dogs and the people whose lives they are enriching.”
For more information you can visit www.medicaldetectiondogs.org.uk.
