Ex-Emmerdale star Malandra Burrows says her pet dog Teddy alerted her to breast cancer lump

Actress Malandra Burrows has openly spoken about her cancer journey and praised her pet dog Teddy who alerted her to a lump on her breast before she was given diagnosis. She explained how her border terrier pup had been showing "bizarre" behaviour and eventually hurt her chest, forcing her to check if she'd been bruised.

The former Emmerdale star, who is best known for playing Kathy Glover in the ITV Yorkshire soap for 16 years, revealed in April that she had been diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. The 56-year-old revealed on Wednesday morning's Lorraine that she has now had three "major operations" and will undergo radiotherapy saying her prognosis and treatment "changes all the time".

Telling host Lorraine how Teddy helped in getting her diagnosis, Malandra said: "We were watching a movie together and she literally wanted to lie on my chest, she'd never done that before. Nuzzling, sort of headbutting me and... sorry I get kind of emotional talking about it.

"This one night, she kind of swiped me so hard with her head, it really really hurt. So that same evening before I went to bed I just checked myself and thought 'Oh she must of bruised me it's really painful' and that's when I felt this little lump and I thought it was a swollen gland. So I thought it was Friday night, I'll leave it the weekend, I'm sure it will go down. Monday morning it was still there".

Malandra then explained how she'd rang her GP, who had asked her to go in to the surgery to get the lump checked and then she ended up going for further tests. "And hey that was the start of my little c journey," She said before adding: "Oh Lorraine, I feel so blessed because as I say I was one of those women who didn't have any symptoms... and without that I just dread to think where I would be now. It is astonishing and I'm so thankful to her, I really am".

Lorraine airs weekdays on ITV and ITV Hub from 9am.