Medical Alert Service Dogs - Page 1

In my experience, I have assumed that a Medical Service Dog, defined as a dog who alerts on health issues such as low blood sugar in a diabetic, an impending epileptic seizure, even migraines or anxiety attacks, is a dog which is innately more sensitive and which intuitively responds to changes in their owner's physical well being.  I thought that a dog is born with such a nature or is not.  In talking with a friend who relies on a medical alert dog, she has explained that her dog was sensitive to her physical well being even as a puppy and that he intuitively will jump on her prior to her getting an attack, thereby giving her warning such that she can put herself in a safe situation prior to losing physical control.  Beyond that, she describes him as calming, settling down and being a stabilizing force during her episodes.  I have seen this in other dogs, not trained, who though a rambunctious young dog, will intuitively settle and draw close to a family member who is near death.

But lately, I have encountered someone who is selling "Medical Alert " Dogs who are "trained" to alert.  Is it my ignorance, or can you train a dog to alert on changes in blood sugar in a Diabetic, or train a dog to do whatever an Epileptic Seizure alert dog does?  It's difficult for me to imagine how you repeat a change in blood sugar in a handler the numerous times it takes to "train" an alert.

What do the rest of you think?  This is not my field, so I do not know. 

I think that they either alert or they don't, it's not something that can be trained.  But if they do alert, you could potentially shape the behavior to a specific type of alert behavior.  Not my area of expertise, but from what I have seen/heard it's not something that you can just teach a dog to do.

I have had four gsds. Two of them since puppy could tell when something was not right in me and would alert to it or give attention to it. The first was a female I had but she has major health issues and was unstable in temperment in public and never could be a service dog in public but at the time was helpful to me as I worked from home and was alone all day with just the dogs. She also went with me when I drove weather permitting and stayed in the vehicle. I did not drive for almost three years due to low sugars making me pass out. I was always ashamed to tell someone why I would not be able to go somewhere or to cancel something if I did not have someone to ride with or my medications/sugars were not working well enough that I felt safe to drive myself. She in the end needed to be euthed because of her own health. I again went back to staying homebound. At this time I had my other gsd who learned the abilities to open cabinets, fetch items, carry groceries, get things dropped, and light switches. I trained her these things in anticipation for a leg rebuild I had done. She never could grasp the sugar issues. I never called this dog a service dog even though she is stable in public, I never vested her or took her in public as one. She could not detect my main issue and even though after the sugury I had mobility difficulties for five years I still did not claim a service dog.

   Quinto as well has no clue nor could pick up on any of my issues. If he or my female feel I am off balance on a hike they will put their shoulder into me. When I bought Ulf I was getting him for companion/ show not a service dog. The bonus was from the age of mere weeks old he knew, he acted on it. I had trained my female to signal and to help with the issue because she was interested in the smell and did show ability for it, but Ulf took it to another whole level on his own. As he got a little older he would remind me of med times on his own, he signals exact each time it drops at all, he gets my things needed to raise sugar if I am unsteady, he gets family to come help me, When I am driving he alerts me before it is lowered and danger of hurting/killing someone happens. In short this dog catches the level of my sugars before I am in danger, and has given me piece of mind, and has given me freedom of ability to go places alone again and without fear I will hurt someone doing so. I have passed out in public and alone before and had been refusing to go off by myself since that. You feel so vulnerable and limited. If my sugars drop and I am home alone too quickly I would be unable to get help or take juice/glucose leading to coma and then death. They drop quick and I do not feel it happening. For others that truly have these issues I would hope someone can provide them dogs on demand. My point is that I really doubt they can. You do train and sharpen their ability they naturally posses and you do teach the other required tasks, but the dog DOES have to have natural ability and desire to pick this type of service work up imo. I got lucky one out of four of my gsds has the ability, drive, temperament, and trainability to do this for me. It takes a complete package to be a creditable service dog and keep their partner/handler safe at the same time being a good dog for public work. I wish I did not have to use him for this. When I am out with my elder son/ husband them driving and they are watching over me I do leave him home. It embarrasses me when ignorance is heard when he is with me. It embarrasses me when someone wont let me in an elevator when he was with me. It embarrasses me when people act stupid and bark at him while he is working..... you would be surprised what you face with a service dog in public. It  infuriates me when someone at a show sees his vest at the hotel says yeah right I bet it was only so he could fly free.... I drive and have never flown with my dog. I am still very new to a service dog in public and

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     ... new to a service dog in public and frankly it sucks and I do not understand people that fake it. Sorry I was long winded and ranted but I do hope I was of some help in regaurds to your question.

One of my dogs, "Buck"  (2nd one if you start on the left side in my picture) has picked up on when my blood sugar was low, and even at times in the past has come over to physically support me when I almost passed out.  He is in fact extremely sensitive to my emotions, when I'm sick, and my mental/physical self as well.  I have never in my life seen a dog so in tune to me.   If I'm sick, for any reason he typically will come over and just lean against me and sit there beside me.   I don't know many dogs who are like that.  My other Huskies, well.......they can't do any of that.

Hi

Here in the Uk we have a great charity, Medical Detection Dogs

http://medicaldetectiondogs.org.uk/

They are a great organisation doing some brilliant work training detection dogs for various illnesses and detecting cancer.

regards

Jo

Thank you for these comments.  It seems to me that when someone with a medical condition comes across that special dog with the Medical Alerting quality, one is very fortunate.  It seems that where it might be possible for someone to pick out a puppy with this trait, it is not possible to take any dog and then train it to alert on medical conditions such as low blood sugar.

If this is the case, then it is fraud for someone to take advantage of those struggling desperately with a medical condition and sell them ($$$)   a dog "trained" to alert on their condition. 

Service Dogs, those dogs trained to turn off the lights, walk by a wheel chair, and the like are different.  Those traits can be trained. 

It seems that lately on hot days especially, there are way too many "Service Dogs" in public.  I even saw a man in Costco ( a large warehouse food store) with a 100% Timber Wolf which he declared was his service dog.  A little boy with his mother standing right there, went over and gave the "Service Wolf" a hug.  It appeared to be an adolescent wolf.  There was not even the pretext of a service vest.  But it was a hot day and I suspect the owner didn't want to leave his wolf in the car. 

It makes me angry when people abuse that privilege that those who really do need their dog to accompany them everywhere, the legitimate service dog community, have worked so hard to obtain. 

Unfortunatly until we start making them register and organise a way to assure the public that a dog is a service dog there is not much that can be done. I am all for having to register my service dog and even having tests to get a certification. I also want brokers selling service dogs and service dog equipment to have to be liscensed.

the movie hatchie is a good example the day richard gere was going to his office and going to have a heart attack his dog kept on insisting to him to play and not go to work

I, too, understood that alerting to siezures or low blood sugar could not be trained.  Then, someone on another forum said you could save the test strips from low or high blood sugar, and train your dog to alert on that.

However, that sounds a bit suspicious to me, as the characteristics of the blood would change as it dried. I'm not sure if it would work, or if blood would smell the same as the body and breath odour the person gives off when hypo- or hyper-glycemic.

A friend of mine has a medical service dog that wants to alert to EVERYBODY who is sick. She was never trained for this, either. She was just intended to be a mobility support dog!

Here's the sort of thing she can do:

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/bulletins.read?mnr=360366

Mali is a Shiloh shepherd. I asked Shiloh breed founder, Tina Barber, what made her choose Mali as a potetial service dog. Here's what she said:

In all honesty, I look for a good problem solver!! I saw her watching the bone boxes in the center of the grooming room -- at first she tried to pull the top box off -- too heavy .... Hmmmm so she circled the box (I just sat on my grooming chair to watch the show) and then she tried to climb up the box -- then I saw her *thinking* & she ran down the aisle & full speed toward the box & UP into it!!
Not only did she get "a bone" she got ALL of them!!