A dog with the ability to detect cancer has been nominated for the Kennel Club Hero Dog Award.

Cocker Spaniel Asher from Milton Keynes had a troubled start to life before finding his way to Claire Guest, founder of the charity Medical Detection Dogs.

With Claire’s guidance, Asher turned into a medical marvel, becoming a leading player in the charity’s efforts to use dogs’ incredible sense of smell to diagnose various diseases.

Asher’s life-changing work has now been recognised as one of five finalists for the prestigious Hero Dog Award.

Claire said: “It's quite amazing and humbling. Partly because of the increased awareness it will bring to what these wonderful dogs can do.

“Whether it’s cancer, Covid, whether we are going to collapse, Asher has led the way. 

“But he is also a rescue dog, he has come from a muddled background but can still do this work. He is a complete success story for rescue dogs.”

The annual Kennel Club Hero Dog Award, supported by The Kennel Club Charitable Trust, celebrates people's unique relationships with their dogs and the important role man’s best friend plays throughout our lives and society.

Judges from The Kennel Club, the UK’s largest dog welfare organisation, selected the five inspiring finalists to go forward for the public vote, which opened last week.

The winner will be announced by the award’s ambassador, Kay Burley, in the Resorts World Arena at the Birmingham NEC and on Channel 4 on Sunday, March 12, the final day of Crufts, the world’s greatest celebration of dogs.

The use of dogs in medical diagnostics has become increasingly popular and effective, with canines now able to detect some cancers, and Parkinson’s disease as well as offer advanced warnings to suffers of PoTS, a drop syndrome.

And while Asher now plays a pivotal role in this work, it was not always set to pan out that way after some hard early years.

“It is incredible that through a simple, non-invasive way you can tell whether somebody has got a disease,” added Guest. It’s really exciting that this can save millions of lives.

“A lot of our work started in cancer detection when we found dogs could detect cancer from a urine sample for bladder and prostate cancer. 

“We are also able to train dogs to detect Covid-19 by sniffing a person. It’s quite incredible.

“For PoTS, our dogs can give a three to five-minute warning with over 95% reliability. People that used to have to use wheelchairs are now able to carry on normal lives.

“Asher has between 350 and 400 million sensory receptors in his noise dedicated to smelling, us humans have five million so there is no comparison.

“He was a very mixed-up dog, very energetic and highly-strung, he didn’t know where he was or what he should be doing. 

“When he came to me it was almost love at first sight. I started to see if he was interested in sniffing, and he just transformed. 

“He takes his work so seriously, but he loves it. After many years, he is a leading dog in the charity.”