Someone’s been sniffing around 🐶😷 A study published this week offers evidence that dogs can be trained to detect Covid-19. The dogs tested in the research accurately identified 97% of positive cases after sniffing human sweat samples. That made them more sensitive than some rapid antigen tests (and a lot more pleasant)! Part of the reason dogs can pick up on coronavirus proteins is because they have an organ in their noses called the Jacobson’s organ, which helps them identify smells that seem odourless to humans. Dogs can also smell volatile organic compounds, or gases found in exhaled air, saliva or sweat. Covid has certain volatile organic compounds that dogs detect, although scientists don’t yet know exactly what they are chemically. That being said, a dog's ability to detect Covid in a sweat sample or piece of clothing doesn't necessarily mean it will be able to do so when facing a real person, which presets a more complex olfactory portrait. So for the foreseeable future stick to the tests we do offer and don’t try this at home.