ASDA's dogs are known for finding missing people, but it's a special dog that helps people find new friends...online!

Take, for example, the story of ASDA’s photographer, Verna Higgins. Verna has been an integral part of documenting the story of ASDA’s SAR and cancer detection dog, John D, who won the 2013 Search and Rescue Hero Dog Award. She helps promote ASDA on Facebook by spreading awareness about using dogs for cancer research. That’s how she came to know Dingsma Missouri, or Rose Gabel for short.  

Rose had been following several dog, community and organization pages when she found John D on the American Humane Association’s Hero Dog Awards website. At the time, he was a nominee whose story caught her eye and heart right away. 

During the Hero Dog Awards campaign, she and her friends would meet online for chatting, swapping stories, poems and jokes. After seeing Verna’s photograph’s on John D’s page, Rose invited Verna to join her group of friends for the evening online sessions.

The two quickly became friends, telling jokes, venting to one another, checking on one another when not feeling well, and sharing a close fellowship together.  When Rose mentioned she would be traveling to Arkansas, she and Verna decided to meet face to face!  

Rose drove an extra couple hundred miles last month to meet Verna, John D and ASDA president Donna Waugh for dinner.  Though Rose had not met any of them before, she and Verna hugged like they had been long-time friends.

“Without John D, Rose and I would not have met at all. So thank you John D and Donna Waugh for contributing to Rose and I becoming friends and inspiring us to never give up hope,” said Verna.

Rose shared, “To think that the furry pup (John D) was responsible for me making relationships that will make a difference in the rest of my life amazes me.  John D not only rescues people that are lost, have been in horrible tragedies, and have lost their way; he rescues those online, that he can’t smell or see.”

At ASDA, we’re passionate about dogs. We know their talents are so spectacular that they can be used to save lives—which is why we dedicate so much time and energy on handler and K9 training,  community education, and of course—search and rescue efforts and cancer research.

As we advance our understanding of dogs’ talents through clinical research, we want everyone to know what we’re learning. So when the Museum of Discovery in Little Rock asked us to be an exhibit in their inaugural Spark! fundraiser, we barked at the chance!

With the hope of “igniting a passion for science, technology and math,” we joined seven other teams to share some of the cutting-edge research happening in Central Arkansas. Not only was the event FUN, it allowed us to have an easy and open dialogue with our community. 

We had several people stop by our table to ask questions, be as fascinated and as impressed as we are, and of course, pose with the famous John D.

We hope to see you at the next one!

Arkansas Search Dog Association (ASDA) has undergone a rebranding to include the expanding scope of skills and services we offer.

When the 501(c)(3) K-9 search and rescue team formed in 2002, our mission was to dutifully honor the Search and Rescue motto, “That others may live.” For years, we have partnered with local and state law enforcement to successfully execute field searches in Arkansas and surrounding states.

In 2010, our dogs began to partner with other institutions, like the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. In addition to utilizing our dogs for search and rescue efforts, our dogs are now used in studies to sniff out hard-to-detect cancers.

With this growth and exceptional potential to more fully live out the SAR motto, we formally changed the 501(c)(3) to the American Scent Dog Association and updated our organization’s creed, “Dedicated to the training and certification of dogs for human scent detection.”

Despite the name change, ASDA’s mission and objectives remain the same: to harness the incredible, olfactory senses of man’s favorite companion in order to save lives. 

Q. Why is the detection of cancer by these amazing dogs so important? 

A. Well, the short answer is that the dogs provide us with a capability that currently does not exist in medicine. With their amazing sensory abilities, their training potential, and their unique relationship with humans, dogs can provide the medical community with an unprecedented skill set.  

I, along with my endocrinologist colleague, Dr. Don Bodenner, am investigating the detection of thyroid cancer in saliva, blood, or urine of metastatic (malignant) thyroid cancer patients. It is important to realize that current screening methods often have a hard time differentiating benign (not cancerous) from malignant (cancerous) nodules (lumps). 

With current diagnostic methods, 20 to 40% of thyroid biopsies will not return a diagnosis after the patient is first biopsied. As a result, multiple biopsy procedures are required, each entailing the same probability of incomplete diagnosis. As a general rule, if a patient is not diagnosed after 3 biopsy attempts, they are then referred for surgical procedure. Of those patients who have been biopsied 3 times without nodule type confirmation, 80% will receive unnecessary surgery.

In other words, 80% of those with indeterminate biopsies who undergo thyroid removal surgery DID NOT require surgery. Imagine the time, expense, pain, and anxiety associated with all these procedures only to finally realize the lump in your throat was not cancer after all. 

Now imagine if the dogs could tell you at the very beginning of your clinical treatment whether or not your lump was cancerous. This would greatly assist your doctor in determining the proper course of your clinical treatment and eventual cure. Further, the total time from diagnosis to cure would be dramatically shortened. 

We have already demonstrated that the dogs can detect metastatic cancer in patient urine or blood with greater than 97% accuracy. Currently, we are determining if the dogs' examination upon patient presentation is predictive of the patients' clinical outcomes. These studies will help us determine their capability for early disease detection. If these studies have the anticipated results, it is then our intent to perform larger scale trials to validate their utilization in clinical practice and diagnosis.     

Arny A. Ferrando, PhD
Professor, Geriatrics
Center for Translational Research in Aging and Longevity

I am a nominee for The American Humane Association 2013 Hero Dog of the Year.  I started life in a shelter, then got adopted and started my career as a Search and Rescue dog 4 1/2 years ago.  I find missing and deceased people during tragedies. I also get called in for water recoveries after someone has drowned. I am the one who finds the victim so their family can have closure.  It is always terribly sad, but I feel it's my calling to help people. One of those searches made a very deep impression on my heart.  A mother whispered to me that I was her only hope to find her child. She put her faith in dogs. Then she hugged me and we looked straight into each other's eyes. There was a bond I can't describe, but it was there. At that moment, I made a silent promise that I would not let her down.

I  went out on the river and we searched for hours. Each time we got to a certain place on the water, I dipped my head and touched it with my nose. Everyone on the boat knew what that meant. But the tough part for a search team is that you can't confirm anything to the family until the victim is brought up out of the water and identified. Sometimes we find a person, but it isn't the person we thought we were looking for. Sometimes, it is too dangerous to recover the victim and there is nothing you can do. But I'd made a promise and I knew who I had found.  I had to figure out a way to gently tell that mom that her son was no longer missing, but he would never come home again.

Reporters for CBS Chicago are spreading the word about the amazing work our dogs are doing in cancer research. Watch the video and check out the article here.

We are so excited to share with you the new things we are working on!

From the UAMS website: 

"In the first study of its kind, Alexander “Sandy” Burnett, M.D., at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), is testing whether local search and rescue dogs can detect ovarian cancer.

Ovarian cancer is often called the silent killer because the disease frequently progresses to advanced stages before symptoms appear, and there is no early detection screening. Ovarian cancer is the ninth most common cancer among women and the fifth leading cause of cancer-related death among women – the deadliest of gynecologic cancers..."

READ MORE HERE