So I really dislike antidotal stories in place of repeatable controlled experiments, however this might be enough to consider developing a real experiment??  

The little dog that we helped train to alert his owner when her blood sugar drops has apparently alerted two other people that their blood sugar was low also,  

The pups owner called me today to tell me she was shopping when the dog became animated and wanted to get to some strange man across the counter from her.  She shushed him a few times then then the man read the vest and mentioned that he could use a diabetic assistance dog.  She asked if he was diabetic, then asked if she could bring the dog near him.  When the pup got close he began alerting.  (The behavior the dog performs to tell the human to check their blood sugar.)  She reports that the mans sugar was indeed low.  In the course of our very excited conversation the pups owner reported that it had happened once before.  To a lady in the doctors office waiting room.  Again when this lady checked her blood sugar it was low.  The pup had no interaction with either person before of after the incidents.  Very interesting.

We tried a little pilot study with my dog Sammy before we started teaching.  We used blood that was low and blood that was normal.  The dog did very well but I think he needed a larger sample size or new sources on a regular basis as I suspect he may have just memorized which pads pay and which don’t.  It is just awful when the dog is smarter than the trainer!

I think we are going to try to put a survey form on the website somewhere just to document these incidents when they happen.  From a training perspective it is pretty exciting, clearly this puppy understands what he is supposed to be alerting on.  

I was approached last year by the friend of a friend who is diabetic and wanted a dog trained to alert her when her blood sugar drops below normal levels.  Hypoglycemia is a potentially life threatening condition, so it is not to be taken lightly.  The dogs should only be considered a back up to other proven techniques for monotering glucose levels in the blood.  

How can a dog tell if the persons blood sugar has dropped or is dropping?  There are a lot of hypothesis but no concrete answer.  Some people think that it is because they smell it.  Some people believe the dogs see some subtle change in the persons behavior and are just faster at seeing and recognizing the difference than humans are.  

she had done her homework and even attempted to work with an organization that specialized in training and marketing these dogs.  (this turned into an expensive nightmare story itself.  Let me just suggest if you are going to pay an organization for a trained dog make sure they are legitimate.)  After reviewing what little research I could find on the topic and a discussion of the protocol used for training I suggested that perhaps we take a much more conserative approach. 

Our goal was a dog that alerted her when her blood sugar was low or dropping and as the end use we really don’t care why.  So we developed a protocol to teach a dog to alert with no emphasis on what techniques the dog used to determine that.  

We found a likely candidate - a rescue through her local shelter by the way.  And started the long process of raising a puppy and shaping it into an assistance dog.  

What does a dog need to be an assistance dog?  They need good public access skills, and they need to perform some necessary service to the handler that the person is unable to perform for themselves.  The dog needs to be able to go anywhere unobtrusively and be able to perform his job in almost any environment.  

A happy new year!  The pup is not yet a year old the owner reports that he is alerting her about 80% of the time - when he is awake.  When the pup is asleep he alerts 0% of the time.  I think this is an important thing for people thinking of incorporating an assistance dog into their program.  the dog is a living animal.  When it is asleep it is off, even the “energizer bunny” stops working when you take the batteries out.  I do not know what the % is expected for seizure alert dogs.  This guy has been working less than a year, only a few months really. It will be interesting to see where he is this time next year and the one after that….  I find with working detection dogs they just keep getting better and better at performing their job reliably.  This guy is off to a great start!

Now the question is if the protocol is repeatable.  Hopefully there will be more opportunities to help train hypoglycemic dogs with their people.  

Hank in the mall first time, learning to foucus on handler.

Originally uploaded by Laura & the pack.

Our latest project Hank is a dog Sam Connley is fostering. She thinks he will make someone a wonderful assistance dog so she asked to put him through our assistance dog-training program. Sam has done a lot of foundation obedience work with Hank now we are starting to work on the public access skills. Here he is learning to focus on Sam and do a default down while he is in the mall. If you think you know someone that may be interested in Hank as an assistance dog please feel free to contact Sam directly at anigraphix@aol.com

“Maryland Shelter finds Value in a Good-For-Nothing Dog.” An Article about Nautica and Brian — a pretty incredible team.

I started an informal program at the Humane Society of Baltimore County to help shelter dogs learn manners so they would be more likely to find and succeed in new homes. Nautica was one of the dogs that came through the program. Her success story is entirely due through the hard work of the volunteers and staff at the shelter. They do an awesome job with all the critters they help.