Here's another reason to love dogs.

Using their super-sensitive noses in a scientific experiment, dogs were able to sniff out lung cancer in samples of human blood with 97% accuracy, new preliminary research reports.

Specifically, three of four beagles correctly identified samples of blood with lung cancer 96.7% of the time and normal samples 97.5% of the time. For whatever reason, the fourth dog was "unmotivated to perform," researchers said.

All four dogs were two years old.

Dogs can do this because the smell receptors in their noses are as much as 10,000 times more accurate than humans.

The study was performed by Heather Junqueira, a researcher at BioScentDx, a Florida-based pharmaceutical lab.

The research has not been published in a peer-reviewed science journal. Monday, Junqueira presented her findings at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology annual meeting in Orlando.

The results could lead to new, non-invasive cancer-screening approaches, the firm claimed.

"Although there is currently no cure for cancer, early detection offers the best hope of survival," Junqueira said.

She said the research helps paves the way for further research into how dogs' noses could be used as a screening method for cancers.

"A highly sensitive test for detecting cancer could potentially save thousands of lives and change the way the disease is treated," she said.