Il Collare d’oro A.N.C.Ass. (Italy)

UNICEF - Health Kits Programme

Il Collare d’oro A.N.C.Ass. (Associazione Nazionale Cani d'Assistenza) is an Italian organisation specialised in service dog training, while organising activities to support people with disabilities through engagement with their pets. The association has a particular focus on service dogs for people suffering from epilepsy.

In 2022/2023, the Eurofins Foundation is contributing to the project Seizure Alert Dogs 2022.

Sudden changes in human body health may result in the release of different and specific body odours. Using their amazing sense of smell, Medical Detection Dogs (MDD) can be trained to identify them and alert the patient.

The project aims to

1. Identify and isolate the pre-crisis odour in humans, which is produced when sweating;
2. Train service dogs to recognise the seizure odour;
3. Collect sweat samples from epilepsy patients at medical centres, which may contain the seizure odour, and create an MDD unit that could aid research into whether the seizure odour changes across the crisis phases.

This project contributes to the following United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals