Royal Canin has announced the launch of the Royal Canin Foundation, designed to support the positive role of pets in human health and welfare.
The company says the launch is a concrete demonstration of its commitment to being a purpose-led organisation.
One of the first projects to benefit in the UK is the training of covid-detection dogs through the work of the Medical Detection Dogs charity.
The Foundation will be governed independently from the Royal Canin Company and aims to build human and social capital, which represents investments in knowledge, talent, diversity and relationships with stakeholders.
The Royal Canin Foundation has set three focus areas: the health and welfare of working dogs; pets in support of medical health; and pets in support of human mental health. The projects identified for funding will be selected on an annual basis. In 2021, close to $1m will be put towards more than 10 projects from different parts of the world, including covid-19 and cancer detection, raising healthy and happy assistance dogs, using dogs in training communication skills for children with autism and developing certification for the trainers of medical detection dogs.
The Royal Canin Foundation is based in Aimargues, France, at the company’s headquarters and operates globally with partners, associations and institutions.
Fabrice Mathieu, Royal Canin Foundation administrator and Royal Canin sustainability director, said: “At Royal Canin, we believe that pets make our lives better, that is why ‘A Better World For Pets’ is our purpose. With the Royal Canin Foundation, we are funding projects that support the positive role of pets in human health and welfare. We have chosen this focus because we want to highlight their role in society and their many benefits to our health and lives.”
The company’s associates (employees) will be the heart of the Foundation. Every Royal Canin associate will be given the opportunity to get involved from the early stages of proposing a project, through to voting for those that they believe should be supported by the Foundation.
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Some of the selected projects to be funded by the Royal Canin Foundation in 2021 are:
n Cancer detection (France) KDOG project led by Institut Curie, Paris, France, aims at evaluating the capacity of trained dogs to remotely detect breast cancer from sweat samples. After a successful proof of concept with more than 90% success rate, KDOG team is now pushing the science further by conducting a clinical trial in a screening-like situation. Thanks to the Royal Canin Foundation’s support, KDOG aims to develop a scientific toolbox with tools and protocols, certification training and guidelines in dog medical detection for scientific communities working on medical detection around the world.
n Certified training for medical detection dogs (France, Canada): Dogs can detect a range of severe human diseases including cancer, seizures, Parkinson’s disease, covid-19, malaria and early stage diabetes. However, dog handlers/educators involved in detection training are not always prepared for the specifics of human diseases, eg sense of work, confidentiality, traceability etc. The Institut Curie (France), Canadian Veterinary Colleges and specialists supporting dog trainers are partnering to implement ‘Certified Medical Detection Dogs Handlers Training’ (MDHT). The aim of this MDHT is to provide a standardised methodology as well as to gather the required knowledge for the practice of this new discipline. This methodology will then go into the scientific toolbox developed by Institut Curie and be available for any team willing to develop a detection protocol involving dogs.
n Training Medical Detection Dogs to detect covid-19 (UK): Medical Detection Dogs is a charity that is at the forefront of innovative research into dogs’ ability to detect the smell of human diseases and save lives. The funding from the Royal Canin foundation will help to train Medical Detection Dogs to identify the odour of covid-19, even when the person displays no symptoms. The dogs will then be deployed to public spaces to provide rapid, non-invasive screening of large groups of people for covid-19. This could be an important step forward in the efforts to overcome the pandemic.
n Dogs in training communication skills for children with autism (Poland): Founded in 2008, Po To Jestem specializes in training dogs for animal assisted therapy and socialisation of guide dogs. Thanks to the Royal Canin Foundation support, it will be able to create a facility for children with autism spectrum disorder, where children can feel safe and work in comfortable conditions. They will also be able to welcome 20 more children and adolescents with autism and mental disabilities per week to work with specially trained dogs and acquire basic universal non-verbal communication skills.
The Royal Canin Foundation focus areas aim to increase knowledge in terms of the human/pet relationship and more globally the human/pet interaction in working situations. The knowledge and research gained from the selected projects will then be shared globally to ultimately benefit pets.
Further information and discussion can be found via social media channels using the hashtags #PetsMakeOurWorldBetter and #RoyalCaninFoundation.
