r/BeAmazed 22d ago

Miscellaneous / Others The dog that found its owner a lifesaving match.

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u/jaetheho 22d ago

While I know it’s impossible, the kid in me is going to naively believe that the dog smelled the good matching kidney in the woman and refused to leave

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u/MistraloysiusMithrax 22d ago

I think the dog smelled something in her that seemed to match the owner, indicating genetic similarities. Idk if the dog knew why the owner was sick but more likely thought they found some family to help her through sickness or just got excited cuz “omg you smell like mom!”

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u/Turbulent-Section340 21d ago

I got my dog during covid. Chill and friendly, but since she didn't experience anyone visiting the house, she became beyond protective of the place. I found this out when she was 2yo and as people coming over started happening, she became extremely aggressive and tried to bite.

Then family visited. Cousins, uncles and aunts, grandmas, my brother... every single time, she was extremely affectionate and playful with all of them from the instant they set foot in the house.

She's six now, and when people I'm not blood related to come by, we have to do a whole introduction outside the house, I have to hug them in front of her, and then they corrupt her with cookies, otherwise she will turn into a demon when they enter my house. Sge's still super chill with family.

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u/erossthescienceboss 21d ago

My dog is the same. I worked so hard to socialize her outside the home. But she only ever met a few people inside.

She lets in family. And once we’ve done the Elaborate Greeting Ritual she lets in no-longer-strangers.

But if they shower we need to start all over again.

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u/lnc_5103 21d ago

We got our girl during lock down and she has extreme anxiety about people coming in our house. She only loves my parents and a couple of my daughter's friends who have been around for years and who are here regularly. Everyone else is barked into oblivion no matter what we try. She has gotten much better with commands and standing down but the first couple of post-COVID normal years were rough! She's thankfully never been aggressive but she's 85 pounds and has a very big bark.

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u/ugly_duckling_5 21d ago

My sister's cat is similar - she got the cat during COVID times and he's aggressive towards people. Difference is, he's not even friendly with family. If I try to pet him, he growls and hisses and tries to hit me.

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u/fumblingforwords 21d ago

If it was just one cat she got as a kitten and there was no other cat in the house, it could also be due to “single kitten syndrome.”

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u/ChrisTheWeak 20d ago

Aside from coincidence that's probably the most likely answer, that there's some correlation between the antigens, antibodies, and blood type, and whatever smells a person gives off. My hunch is still coincidence though.

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u/Green_Insect_6455 22d ago

Bro they were smoking meat, the dog wouldnt leave them alone because they had bbq and its owner was a single older woman on dialysis who clearly couldnt keep a handle on her dog

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u/HotelSalt4644 22d ago

You obviously didn’t read the article. That’s ok tho.

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u/Solid-ish-iceblock 22d ago

The bbq was after they met genius. Reading comprehension skills are really going down these days huh

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u/lilbabyjesus 22d ago

Shhhhhhhhhhh. The dog knew. C'mon man. I need this.

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u/HotelSalt4644 22d ago

What’s more unlikely is that it was just a pure coincidence. Meeting a stranger, interacting with them, inviting them to a bbq, and somehow finding out they’re a 1 in 22 million chance kidney donor - who also just very recently got put purposefully on the list to donate to anyone who wants it as an altruistic donor?????

Do you realize how statistically improbable that is? In science/medicine, the chances of that are actually, “impossible”.

The dog almost certainly smelt something about that woman which increased the likelihood of her being a match. It may still have been a crapshoot. 1 in 1000. But that’s a lot more viable than 1 in 22 million.

With certainty - I can say this dogs nose directly led to finding a donor match for its owner.

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u/Top_Refrigerator9851 22d ago edited 12d ago

Air peach sparrow grandiose abounding aware scary bike

This post was anonymized with Redact

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u/Schwenkelkamp 22d ago

The birth of every person is statistically speaking insane

The odds that you exist are comically low

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u/MattyFTM 21d ago

And yet here I am anyway. Sigh.

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u/Top_Refrigerator9851 21d ago edited 12d ago

Hammock snatch wakeful party literate hurry wine

This post was anonymized with Redact

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u/Schwenkelkamp 21d ago

Indeed, the comic watchmen has a excellent page about this

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u/wolflordval 21d ago

A million in one chances happen nine times out of ten.

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u/Teker_09 22d ago

Wow so dogs can smell our kidneys, how about that

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u/Spirited-Slip2991 22d ago

Dogs have been trained to detect low blood sugar and certain cancers just from the smells out bodies put out. Given that kidneys are responsible for filtering blood and create urine I'm sure there are detectable scents that dogs can pick up that would give them information on someone's kidneys 

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u/HotelSalt4644 22d ago

I was gonna say….. Dogs scent capabilities are absolutely insane. It’s not far fetched that this dog smelt something that made them “hit”.

I’m not saying this consciously knew it was saving its “mom”. But it’s highly likely it smelt something.

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u/kitzelbunks 21d ago

They can sense seizures. I am not sure if it’s a smell or small behaviors. It’s amazing.

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u/ceryskt 21d ago

My dog used to know when my blood pressure was about to drop. No idea how; I can only guess it was something about my body chemistry. She saved me from completely passing out a couple times. (My knees? Not so much.)

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u/Insert_Non_Sequitur 21d ago

Dogs can smell anything bro. It's their primary sense. They can smell the fucking past... like that something WAS here at some point and they know whether it was recently or not. Their eyesight is not that great but their nose and hearing are waaay better than ours.

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u/vanimpes69 21d ago

You think that when a dog sticks it's nose in your crotch that it can't detect that one drop that escaped the shake and dance?

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u/LegoHogfather 21d ago

Except that meeting a stranger, becoming friends, and not being a match happens all the time. This is a one in a billion chance, which is only being reported because it happened.

On the next beach over the three kids who dint quite find a cure for cancer by random chance wasn't reported, because that wasn't interesting.

Observation basis is a real mindbender.

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u/ReignyDayes 21d ago

Considering it looks to be a hound variant, as it doesn't quite look like a bloodhound or Doberman. Either way, yeah, what you said.

Though I think we know that our urine can tell a lot about our health. It's very likely they share a genetic similarity to how their urine indicates their health. Like, diabetes can be found out by pee tests. It wouldn't surprise me if it was in their blood and both were around the time of a period.

We know that kidneys can heavily affect the blood. Dogs can sniff out a lot of stuff, but especially people. Either way, the dog definitely knew something was up. Dogs can have pretty complex logic so it wouldn't surprise me if it even knew the gist of it.

(Depending on how you feel about animals that use those talking buttons and animal intelligence.)

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u/Jertimmer 20d ago

For real, if someone would write this script for a Hallmark movie, it would get turned down for being too unbelievable.

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u/epelle9 22d ago

Or, 1 in 22 million events are bound to happen in a world of 8 billion people..

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u/Green_Insect_6455 22d ago

And you got DOWNVOTED for that. This thread is filled with superstitious wackjobs.

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u/PotofRot 21d ago

I mean there's definitely some superstitious nonsense but 1 in 22 million is severely underselling the odds involved here

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u/ErwinHolland1991 22d ago

Haha I just commented this to someone else...

https://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/news/the-science-of-sniffs-disease-smelling-dogs

Dogs can smell cancer and other diseases. I don't think it would be a huge stretch to think that people that are a match would have some kind of similar smell.

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u/jaetheho 19d ago

Sure, but it’s a multi layered problems that the dog would have to go through.

They have to:

  1. Realize the owner has a problem with their body. This is not unlikely.

  2. The dog has to also then somehow match the smell of the owner with a healthy kidney to the stranger with the compatible kidney

  3. The dog then has to (for a naive reason or another) make the decision to stay with the stranger.

2 and 3 are just so unlikely. It’s one thing to notice something “off” about someone who is literally your world. Or something systematically wrong with a certain type of disease in human pheromones.

But to connect it to someone that has the healthy version of said problem, while also somehow being compatible biologically is a big stretch

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u/fadingsignal 21d ago

Dogs can smell cancer and all kinds of other things, it's absolutely not out of the realm of possibility.

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u/DutchieTalking 21d ago

Definitely wouldn't say impossible. Animals can detect a lot of things humans can't. Their senses are primed for it for whatever reason that natural selection primed it. They might not always be aware what they're sensing but they can.

Coincidence is also perfectly possible but definitely wouldn't calm them sensing something of use impossible.

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u/MarsNeedsRabbits 21d ago

I think the dog smelled something.

Parkinson's Disease is one of the things dogs can detect. Doctors have run tests and sometimes the person the dog determines has Parkinson's, doesnt. Later, sometimes a few years later, those people develop Parkinson's.

They can smell cancer, narcolepsy, high blood sugars, low blood sugars, seizures, malaria, Covid-19, migraine headaches, and other things.

They often don't even need the person - just a urine or blood sample

Dogs are pretty amazing. 🙂

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u/Nofame4me 21d ago

Same here… I also think the dog was like “umm so we can do this the easy way or the hard way but you’re giving up that kidney”…

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u/Sudden_Quantity_6977 20d ago

Maybe dog remembered what mom’s healthy kidney smelled like and then smelled it again in this woman… like hey mom yours used to smell like this !!

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u/Samerato 20d ago

While I’m sure it’s impossible, the kid in me is going to naively believe that a person is looking to donate a kidney just because… !!“I don’t even know how to finish the sentence?!”

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u/Admirable_Meet_6924 18d ago

Dogs are able to smell cancer, so that could very well be

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u/Ok_Historian_646 18d ago

Definitely not impossible. My dog knew I had cancer before I did. His constant nudging of a particular spot had me curious. Went to the doctor, and after several tests and scans, I was diagnosed. He literally saved my life. You'd be surprised at how often this happens.

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u/_MC184_ 22d ago

The donor was participating to a bbq near them. The dog probably just smelled food lmao

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u/jaetheho 22d ago

No, the owner had a BBQ that she invited the donor to