Spontaneous orienting of untrained companion dogs naïve to human epilepsy toward odor samples from an unfamiliar human in a controlled non-social paradigm: a proof-of-concept

Background. Evidence for spontaneous seizure detection by dogs remains limited. This study examined whether ictal odor cues elicit behavioral responses in untrained companion dogs.
Objective. To test whether dogs naïve to human epilepsy show spontaneous discrimination of ictal versus interictal odor.
Methods. Thirty dogs, without prior seizure exposure, freely investigated three odor stations (ictal, interictal, blank) using sweat samples from a single unfamiliar donor in controlled, non-social conditions.
Results. Dogs were more likely to investigate the ictal odor first than expected by chance (Monte Carlo p=0.029), indicating an early orienting bias. No differences emerged in sustained engagement. Structured exploratory patterns occurred only in odor conditions (ictal p=0.001; interictal p=0.002), not in the control (p=0.715).
Conclusions. Ictal odor may carry salience sufficient to influence initial attention in naïve dogs. However, findings are based on a single donor and require replication with multiple individuals to assess generalizability.