I am immensely proud of the team that has consistently given their best to ensure that we achieve our objectives successfully. Highlights for me have always been meeting people, particularly those with metabolic and allergic problems, whose lives have been transformed by a dog trained by us.

One of my key contributions to the dog training was being privileged to put together the team for the ‘Cancer Detection’ proof of principle study which was, not only so successful but presented so well in the British Medical Journal, in 2004. Another highlight was the first International Biodetection Conference held in my alma mater, Emmanuel College Cambridge, in September 2015.

We lead the world in this extraordinary venture, and there are great prospects for the future.

When you start off a new venture there is inevitably a feeling of uncertainty as to what the future holds. This was particularly so with Medical Detection Dogs because our venture was to be totally ground breaking. But we felt we had common sense on our side and It was obvious to us that not to research whether dogs could reliably sniff cancer to a high degree of accuracy was to leave a massive stone unturned in the search for a better means of diagnosis.

However, we had much to learn. Having a great idea is one thing but turning it into a practical proposition is quite another. Research is a rigorous and long drawn out activity and real practical results take an enormous amount of time to achieve.  Also research is a highly competitive area.  Not everyone welcomes you on the scene particularly if they are themselves struggling.  But most of all you have to learn that although there are charity funds available the competition for those funds is vast.  For years Medical Detection Dogs  was struggling and struggling hard.

You will not be surprised therefore to learn that reaching the 10 year anniversary of what is now, a strong and effective charity, causes me great pleasure and indeed to heave a big sigh of relief! We are regarded as world leaders in the field and world involvement is high.   We have created a virtual whirlwind of activity with very strong media interest. We are making great progress and if we are fortunate in obtaining generous donations can progress even more.

As for my involvement I am one of several who got the charity off the ground and I am delighted that I managed to help get the charity over a few hurdles. The rewards are sweet –  the greatest feeling is the satisfaction of having helped a massively worthy cause.

It has been such a privilege to be involved with Medical Detection Dogs since I first visited the charity with a friend in 2011. In the early years, Dr Claire Guest’s work with dogs was viewed with great scepticism by the medical profession but thanks to the dogs’ outstanding abilities to detect disease, and Claire’s insistence on scientific rigour, Medical Detection Dogs is now in a very different position. There is huge, worldwide interest in our work and its possible applications and we are acknowledged to be world leaders in this ground-breaking area of medical research.

I am enormously proud to be associated with a charity with such a dedicated team of hard working and professional staff and hugely grateful to the many volunteers who contribute so much of their time and energy to help the charity advance its work. My highlight must be the many occasions when I introduce visitors to the charity and they see a demonstration of the dogs working, or hear a client speak about the difference their dog makes to their life, and then fully understand, indeed are ‘blown away’ by the huge potential that lies behind Medical Detection Dog’s work and the realisation that our dogs that will save countless lives. Claire and the team have achieved a great deal in the last 10 years and I am confident that the next 10 years will bring even more progress in our life saving research.

I first met Claire Guest in 2001 when I was working in dog assessment at Hearing Dogs. I was totally intrigued and excited by the ground breaking plans she had to scientifically prove that dogs could detect the odour of cancer and I knew I wanted to be part of this research. This became a reality in 2008 when Claire set up this fantastic new charity and I was employed as a trainer of a new team of dogs to carry out the 2nd research paper into bladder cancer detection. The feeling of being part of something really incredible and world changing is still how I feel 10 years later. I have been with the charity from the start and I hope to be with them for many years to come.

When I first read about the charity in 2008, (at that time named Cancer and Bio Detection dogs), I was fascinated. It combined my loves of dogs and science and I went to help at our first location in Westcott, a very cold building where we were until December 2010. We were a very small team then and all mucked in to help, we even had meetings in my dining room! We had little money, everything was donated and our leaflets were printed on next door’s photocopier, Claire even had to limit how long the heating could be put on for. It has been a great privilege to be part of the charity from the beginning and this anniversary is a credit to all the people along the way, too many to mention, that have believed in and contributed to the charity’s growth and work.

In 2008, Dr Claire Guest worked with my wife and I to train Zeta to become my Diabetes Alert Dog. We were the first partnership for Medical Detection Dogs and Zeta was by my side for over eight years keeping me safe daily. Sadly Zeta passed away in late 2015 and the charity have supported me in training Fizz, a successor Medial Alert Assistance Dog. Having the first Diabetes Alert Dog changed my life and it is wonderful to see that the charity have assisted so many other individuals in need, reaching the impressive milestone of having 100 Assistance Dog Partnerships. It is also amazing to see some of the additional health conditions that the charity are now successfully training dogs to assist with and I hope that in the next 10 years many more people will benefit from these four-legged lifesavers.