Note to self: Dog, Colonoscopy?

There's a cold war going on in my house. Actually, to be exact, it's more like a luke warm war. The war is being waged between myself, and my eldest pup, a 120 pound Mastiff mix named Hercules. (To his friends, he's known as The Hercum, or Mister Poop).

It's an established fact that dog farts are one of the more toxic scents in the universe. They trail behind the lethal squirrels of Papua New Guinea, but that's about it.
Now add to this the fact that Hercules is possibly the laziest dog known to man. His sheer capacity to sit motionless and/or sleep is unrivaled in the tristate area. He has, when given the chance, happily stayed in bed until 4pm, not even getting up to go pee. This is the level of devotion he carries for the art of sleeping.
Additionally, I've been instructed that Hercules needs more exercise, a declaration from the vet that he's been sulking over ever since. To oblige, I leash him and his "sister" (an overeager and caffeinated St. Bernard mix) up twice a day to go on walks.

Yesterday, this required leashing him on the couch. And then PULLING him off the couch and out the front door. I think I get more exercise during these endeavors. Regardless, these walks are the epicenter of the war. He thinks my offensive move is to drag him out twice a day. And so, in defense, he's taken to plodding up near me. Curling up (with his bottom facing me) and releasing the most foul, long, and LOUD farts ever. The stench is simply unbelievable. I've been considering getting a gas mask. In fact, last night I threatened to get him a colonoscopy. I mean, SOMETHING needs to be done. I'm starting to think there's a dead animal in there.

All of which, brings me to the weird fact for the day: "A recent study by Japanese researchers came out with an interesting finding that if trained properly, dogs can detect the bowel cancer even in the initial stages by sniffing out the patient’s breath or stool."
In these tests, a labrador correctly identified 91% of cancer victims by their breath, and 97% by their stool.
Impressive I feel.

But let's think about this, researchers spent LOADS of money, to study dogs, smelling poop. OH MY GOD. Seriously? There I was thinking that the All State Smelling team (my dogs for those who weren't aware of their title) were just trying to annoy me. But here's the other thing I can't stop thinking about. My dogs, when they've found some particularly smelly poop, LOVE to roll in it. It's literally all I can do to keep them out of it. And sometimes I simply don't succeed. Which leads to immediate baths. Which raises two main concerns
1. The "special" poop that gets my dogs all excited, could it be disease ridden and this is their way of telling me? (Which means, oh god, I've been washing cancer poop off them, WITH MY OWN HANDS!
2. Should I pay special attention to the next time Hercules meets a labrador? See if it's smelling anything not so good in his butt?