Dogs medically trained to detect low blood sugars

[allisa]

Hey all !

I was watching the news last week and caught the very last bit about dogs that are trained to detect low blood sugars...I missed the whole piece, but I found a few things online, including the link below.....it is so fascinating !

Has anyone else heard of this ....or even have a dog....there is a waiting list and it seems that the need is more prevalant among older people who can't detect their lows as well as they once could and people who live alone and may not be able to detect nighttime lows.

Dog may truly be man's best friend !!

http://www.rense.com/general67/ememd.htm

[allisa]

Kicked this back up to the top...related to the other post about the beagle...I think it is soooo cool that someone living alone can have this help !

[payne782000]

I have a dog not trained but when my sugar runs low she stays close to me.

[EmmasMom]

My husband sent them a letter about Emma to see if there was any way we could get her on the list. So far we haven't heard anything :(. It would be great though!

[allisa]

Amy, that would be amazing....I'd love to hear if you did go through with it.

My Ty is TERRIFIED of dogs.....so I'd have to get him to warm up to the idea of a dog LIVING in our house.....there for HIM, no lesss !!! But I would LOVE LOVE to do this....I'm so fascinated by it !

[Jen Jen]

When I was a kid, we had a dog that sort of belonged to the whole neighbor hood, he was this great big black lab we called Bear, just a stray that adopted everyone. If I got low while I was fishing or something, he'd grab the back of my shirt or pants in his mouth, or wrap his front legs around me, start whining and yelping like he was hurting and pull me towards the house, and everytime, I'd test and would be low. He was great, but someone unfortunately stole him, everyone that met him, loved him instantly, even if they weren't dog people. Now adays, I have my cat, if I don't feel a low coming on, and she does, she pesters me nonstop until I do something about it. Even then she doesn't leave me alone, she sits on my lap or feet until my sugar's back to a decent level, then she goes back to being a cat with that cat look.

So I definitely love the idea, and think it's possible with more than just the trained animals. Any that have applied for it, Good Luck!

[kiwikid]

I have a friend in NZ who is using this company to help train her dog.
www.heavenscentpaws.com
:cwds:

[molly]

Interesting. I have never heard of this before. Thanks for the info. I am going to look into it a little more.

[Ellen]

There will be a chat on this topic at http://www.diabetestalkfest.com/ this Thursday at 9:00 p.m. eastern

Here's the announcement

Devin Grayson has had type 1 diabetes since the age of fifteen, and a passion for animals for much longer than that! Last year, on the twentieth anniversary of her diagnosis, she began volunteering at Dogs4Diabetics, an all-volunteer, non-profit organization providing quality medical alert assistance dogs to insulin-dependent Type 1 diabetics. She met Cody, then an eleven-month-old Golden Retriever, during a D4D sponsored outing to Pier 39, and the two have been together ever since. Cody is now sixteen-months-old and can scent the changes in Devin's body chemistry that predict hypoglycemia -- a scent no human could ever identify. Cody has been trained to alert her to these changes by jumping up to place his paws gently on her hips or shoulders, and also knows how to go get help when necessary. Cody has already saved Devin's life several times by waking her up in the middle of the night when her blood sugars have fallen dangerously low, and he accompanies his diabetic partner everywhere -- even to plays, sangha meditation sessions, and lunches at Chez Panisse!

Devin works as a writer, most prominently on comic books such as Batman and the X-Men, but she thinks Cody's job is far more exciting. She just writes about superheroes; Cody actually is one!

Devin will be chatting with us Thursday, July 27 at 9pm eastern time!

[badshoe]

Our most of the time idiot beagle has woken us up a few times when Delaney was low. The dog sleeps with her. All the sudden the dog wakes us up and I think she needs to go out. Nope the dog kept running into Delaney's room a jumping on the bed and poking her with its nose. What the heck I'm up I'll test. low 40s.

Unfortunately the dog doesn't do all the night time testing. And Unfortunate doesnt wake up for all the night time lows. Still that earned a few scooby snax.

[Pammers]

That sounds so awesome. We have a dog but Joey recently tested allergic - so we've been keeping her away from the bedrooms and so far so good, but I'm not above sending her to another loving family if need be.

What kid wouldn't want to take their dog to school with them???? :D

[Chase's mom]

We have 2 Boxers I wonder if I let them stay inside if they could detect lows????:confused:

[Momof4gr8kids]

We have a big black lab. He is not trained or anything, but if Julia is playing in the back yard, and she becomes low he will bark and scratch at the sliding glass door! I didn't realize what he was doing until it happened a few times, and each time Julia would tell me she felt low within 5 minutes, and we would test, and she would be low! It is amazing how some animals can do this.

A bit off topic, but still kind of cool is that some dogs can actually detect seizures up to 20 minutes before the seizure starts.

[rickst29]

When he knows that my bG is low, he just sits and wags his tail extra nice, hoping that we toss him a 'fruit punch' glucose tablet as a treat! He loves 'em.

We aren't doing this "training" thing too well, I guess. :o