A rescue dog saved his owner's life when it sniffed out an aggressive breast cancer tumor in her chest. 

Josie Conlon, 46, of Stockon-on-Tees, England, was at home with her two-year-old collie Ted when he began crying, pawing and nuzzling her chest. Ted seemed like he was trying to tell her something. When she looked down at her chest she found a lump and went to the doctors, reported The Telegraph. 

It was breast cancer. 

The doctor was able to remove her aggressive tumor, but he told her that if she waited much longer the cancer probably would have spread throughout her body, reported The Telegraph. 

Ted is a calm rescue dog who isn't one to play around (it's believed he suffered a blow to the head with his former owners and was kept in a small cage), which helped Conlon pick up the sign that he was trying to tell her something. 

"I think a lot of people would probably just push a dog away if it started clawing at their chest, but dog owners should take notice, because Ted really did save my life," Conlon told The Telegraph. 

Conlon had the tumor removed in mid-December and was told last week by her doctor that the cancer did not spread. She still has to undergo 18 weeks of chemotherapy and four weeks of radiotherapy to make sure the cancer doesn't return. 

in 2014 alone, the American Cancer Society estimated there was 810,320 cases of breast cancer in women.