From an early age, Cindy Roberts believed dogs can accomplish great things. She’s always had a four-legged companion in her life, beginning with the cocker spaniels she trained and entered in dog shows throughout her teen years. In her own words, she progressed from training to breeding and showing dogs — then, in college, she dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. But life, as it often does, had different plans for Roberts – she obtained a degree in business and got married, letting vet school fall to the wayside. “But we didn’t start a family,” she chuckles. “Instead, we had dogs.”
In 2011, Roberts became her mother’s primary caregiver when a CT scan showed she’d contracted lung cancer. Roberts’ mother had already beaten melanoma and breast cancer, and when the highly progressed lung cancer showed up, the brave woman simply decided it was her time. “She died that Monday, and she made me promise I would work on my dreams,” Roberts says.
That was the first day of what would become a meaningful journey for Roberts – initially, out to California to learn how to train dogs to sniff for essential oils. When a news article surfaced about a woman from Chico who’d taught dogs to sniff for cancer, Roberts did not hesitate; she called the woman and enrolled in her next workshop. “Then, I called my friend here in Birmingham, Laurie Malone, founder of Sprout and Penny Canine Foundation and a researcher at UAB,” she says. “I told her about it, and she immediately started plotting her trip — figuring out airfare. When we both came back, we were ready to train dogs.”
But it was not as simple as that. The two women realized they would need “samples,” or people diagnosed with cancer who had not started treatment, to evaluate the dogs’ performances. These samples were not easy to find. “We hit wall after wall,” Roberts shares. “And we decided if we could not get human samples, we’d get dog samples. We worked with a few animal clinics for that.”
While forming their program, Sniff 4 Life, Roberts and Malone were approached by a Florida company, BioScentDX. They were interested in establishing a detection program and Roberts and Malone were poised to work with them – then the pandemic hit. “We brainstormed about the best way someone could get a sample from their dog and send it to us,” Roberts says. “The answer was saliva —people do DNA tests to figure out breeds all the time, so we knew it could work.”
Today, Sniff 4 Life’s goal is training dogs to detect cancer in other dogs, starting with an at-home kit from their joint company with BioScentDX known as ScoutMD. ScoutMD allows owners to collect their own pup’s saliva and easily submit it to the program for testing. Soon, Roberts predicts, cancer in humans will be detected by the dogs via a breath test — and there’s no doubt the dogs will be ready for this challenge. “They take their jobs very seriously,” she declares. “They think it’s the best thing in the world. We teach the dogs that when they find something, they get a reward. And they are all about sniffing and getting their treats.”
Roberts describes how emotional it was for the team when the dogs learned to sniff and find cancerous cells – and what it could mean, long term, for medicine. “The first time, we did what’s called a blind search, where the handler didn’t know where the cancer was, and neither did the dogs, and we had all six dogs and they all alerted on the correct sample,” she recalls. “I just burst into tears. We had accomplished what we set forth to do. And I knew that going forward, we would definitely be able to help pet owners save their dogs. And then we would save humans.”
The team is made up of all volunteer pups, mostly beagles and labradors, plus another breed or two, and sniffing is done at the facility in Vestavia. The dogs are as normal as can be when they aren’t working, Roberts insists. “They run and play in the yard; they sleep on the sofa or bed. They are normal dogs — and their owners are so proud. These people and their dogs have become part of my family,” she beams.
Most of all, though, she owes the ongoing success of Sniff 4 Life to her mother’s belief in chasing her dreams. “This all came about as a promise to my mom,” Roberts muses. “She was always a supporter of my endeavors.”
To learn more, visit spk9.org.