Our Monthly Meeting on 27 August 2025 turned out to be a very popular choice with our members as we had Natalie Ellison from Medical Detection Dogs (MDD) as our speaker. Natalie introduced MDD and said how proud they were to have HM Queen Camilla as their active patron. She then described that the purpose of MDD is to save and enhance lives.

Humans have about 5 million scent receptors in their noses whilst dogs have around 300 million. Research has shown that dogs can detect an odour diluted to parts in one trillion. Nalalie provided a practical example: many people can smell if there is a spoonful of sugar in a cup or tea, whilst a dog can smell a spoonful of sugar in a cup the size of two Olympic swimming pools!

All cells – including bacteria and viruses – produce waste products and these have smells that dogs can detect. The challenge is to train a dog to recognise the smells, and indicate to its handler when it has detected the smell. Natalie played a video featuring the CEO of MDD, Dr Claire Guest OBE who told of her own experience with her dog staring at her and nuzzling her chest obsessively. It emerged after tests that the dog had smelled a cancerous process, and its persistence resulted in the condition being caught in time, even before a firm lump could be felt. A friend of hers had had a similar experience with a dalmation behaving obsessive with a mole that turned out to be a skin cancer.

MDD has a staff of 50 and is supported by 700 volunteers. The centre they have in Milton Keynes is largely as a result of a significant bequest that was awarded to the charity by a group of solicitors handling a significant will, so the beneficiary herself never realised the work that was achieved. The dogs developed by MDD are not kept in kennels but live in the homes of volunteers and have a normally doggy life in their families. The dogs have a normal working day, but in order to maintain focus they only work 20 minutes in an hour. The remaining time is used for resting, socialising, eating and exercise.

This was an excellent presentation delivered in a most professional fashion, and was very much enjoyed by all those present. A collection was made for MDD after the presentation and collected a substantial amount of money from the members. Our next Monthly Meeting is on 24 September 2025 at 10:00am, and will feature the “General Strike – 100 years on”.