Upper St. Clair Woman Says Dog Detected Breast Cancer

Just call her man's breast friend.

As part of a strange but heartwarming story, especially for animal-lovers, an Upper St. Clair Township woman says that her dog discovered a tumor in the woman's left breast ahead of her yearly mammogram.

Susan Castriota, a children's book author who lives in Upper St. Clair's Deerfield Manor area, was told that the tumor was cancerous and that it needed to be removed. That's when it dawned on Castriota that her dog, Bella—also a character in her books—had been poking at that breast for quite some time before the mammogram this past October.

Castriota (and Bella) shared their story with the hosts of TV's "The Doctors" earlier this year, and that episode finally aired on July 10.

"I was thinking, 'What are you doing?'" Castriota recalled during the episode, part of which can be seen above via YouTube and here on "The Doctors" website.

"And she did it several times, and I kinda just got to the point where I just shooed her away. And then, I had my mammogram. That's when they discovered that there was cancer."

A veterinarian who also appeared on the show explained that dogs have a sense of smell "about 100,000 times better than (humans)" and that dogs can "pick up" on the chemicals that are emitted from people with cancer.

"She (Bella) doesn't know that you're having breast cancer," Dr. Karen Halligan explained. "What it is is she knows Susan's normal smell, and then, something smelled abnormal. And that's why she kept scenting that."

Watch the full episode here.

The episode shows Castriota with a full head of hair, but she has since lost that hair due to chemotherapy. She also had a double mastectomy in December and is now working on reconstruction.

Castriota says that Bella continues to feel her pain, even throwing up after Castriota went through chemo.

"She now sleeps right by my left breast area where the cancer was," Castriota said. "Amazing little girl!"