Meet Cliff, the C. Diff Sniffing Dog

The British Medical Journal has reported that a beagle named Cliff was successfully trained to detect C. diff in stool samples in a lab environment.

Cliff was trained to either sit or lie down when he detected C. diff. He was tested on 100 C. diff positive and negative stool samples and was able to identify all the positive samples and 47 out of 50 negative samples. He was also taken to two Dutch teaching hospitals and taken through wards, where he identified 25 out of 30 cases of C. diff in patients and 265 out of 270 negative controls.

To learn more and see a video of Cliff working, click here.