Amazing what dogs can be trained and used for.

[M6NEN 2]

Hi everyone.

Without a doubt you have all heard about guide dogs for the blind, even dogs for assisting the deaf, explosives dogs, drug dogs, dogs looking for people (dead or alive) stuck under rubble and debris (eg. after an earthquake).

Certainly wonderful what dogs can do with their sense of smell and equally wonderful how people can train them to put that gift of nature to good use.

 

I have now learned about a new and wonderful use for a dog, it started in the country where my roots lie, and I am sure many people will benefit from such a dog if the idea takes on.

What I am talking about is a diabetes dog.

I saw it on the news: the dog in question was a King Charles Spaniel, and he belonged to a 9-year old girl who had type 1 diabetes.

Unlike a guide dog for the blind, the dog was not strapped in a harness and held close to the child's side, like dogs and children often tend to do, they were playing in the garden together.

However, whenever the girl's sugar limits changed beyond the limits (hyper or hypo), the dog barked, and then the girl's mother came and took her daughter's sugar levels and did what had to be done, according to the situation. And believe it or not, the dog had not been wrong once.

 

The question is: what did the dog go by and how had he been trained?

In essence, it was very simple (the principle, at least, doing and achieving it probably took quite a bit of time, effort and patience): the dog was guided by the smell of the girl's breath.

For training the dog they had let the child breathe into a plastic bag and used the air from the bag (obviously supplied under different circumstances of her sugar levels) to let the dog sniff it and in doing so recognising the different states the girl was in and to bark if the stuation was not normal.

 

In my opinion, this is a brilliant idea, and I think this should be looked into much deeper, as little children do not always automatically detect the symptoms of a hyper or a hypo (I should know, being a grandfather of a 10-year old diabetic girl), and with a dog being man's best friend, it is good if their playmate can alarm a responsible adult with a minimum amount of panic.

 

I would say, great idea, carry on and bring it on.

 

Edited January 22, 2019 by M6NEN (see edit history)