Medical Alert Service Dogs - Page 2

Here's the latest Mali story, courtesy of her owner. She was out shopping with Mali, and had to run a number of errands:


We were at our last stop,Walmart, and it was about 2 in the afternoon. After this we would go home and I could put my feet up and Mali could go be a dog. I just had a few things to pick up, but Walmart was packed with people since it was the middle of the month. I had to wait for an electric cart to ride, as there was no way I was going to have Mai help to pull me in one of their wheelchairs, she does not have a pulling harness. I do not know how long we waited but Mali started to get antsy and I had to tell her to down stay. I thought it was because she had been out all day after being in for so long....

We shopped for about 15 minutes before she started to push against me and whimper. I looked down at her and asked if she needs to go be a dog. She looked up at me with those intelligent eyes hopefully, and I thought I had guessed it. I told her I was almost finished. When we passed the isle with soda in it she started to buck and wine and make wooing sounds. I am thick and did not understand, I corrected her and told her Mali enough. By the time we got to the pastry department she had enough of my not listening and grabbed me by the arm puling me halfway out of the cart, while making a gurgling wooo. This is when I got it; my blood sugar was low.

I quickly picked out a donut, and went to the cash register and checked out. You see I am one of those rare people who does not get any symptoms of low blood sugar until it is too late. I checked my blood sugar level in the car and it was a 42. To some of you that might sound like OMG, I have gone as low as a 39 without a symptom before. After that it goes very fast, nausea, shaking, turning grey and coma. I had only minutes until my sugar dropped further. I could have been driving my car and had no way to bring it up or even known what was happening as a wave of nausea swept over me. Thank goodness for my girl!

 

 

I have a condition that would require the dog to have to be trained.  I sleep too soundly.  I hear nothing, and I mean, NOTHING.  I sleep through smoke alarms, thunderstorms, a dog barking right beside me, etc.!  I wake to touch.

It wasn't much of an issue until I started living on my own.  I started looking into the right training to have Drake alert me with paws to any of the sounds that could be a threat.  I've been a combination of busy and lazy, so I haven't done it yet.

Would this be considered medical alert?  I would think so.

Yes, it would. In the U.S., I think there has to be a minimum of three things the dog does for you to in order for it to be considered a medical service dog.

I have my dogs trained for the smoke alarm, door, alarm clock and kitchen timer. I've never bothered with the phone, because I carry it with me when I'm working around the kennel, and I can't have my dogs with me due to the danger of a fight breaking out between them and the boarders.

I recently installed a new doorbell that rings out in the kennel, as the sound from the previous one didn't carry that far. At first, none of my dogs would alert to this different sound. It's taken about 2 months, but now Ranger is alerting to it, without me doing any training with him.

I still sometimes miss the sound of the bell if I'm outside hosing down runs. I am thinking of putting a sign by the door: If no response to bell, please knock loudly to activate dogs!


If you are going to use your dog outside the home, I strongly recommend you give him public access training, so he knows how to behave. Here are the guidelines for Hearing Ear dogs as laid down by Assistance Dogs International:


http://www.assistancedogsinternational.org/Standards/HearingDogStandards.php 

http://www.assistancedogsinternational.org/Standards/AssistanceDogPublicStandards.php



How severe is your hearing loss, GSD? Or is it just that you're a heavy sleeper?

I have a cochlear implant in my left ear, and a hearing aid in my right. When I take my ear gear off for the night, I have almost no hearing in the left ear, and only about 10% in the right. However, I can still hear my dogs barking, and the noise my business partner's dogs make as they go charging up the stairs in the morning to go outside. But I could be standing right next to the smoke alarm and not hear it going off!
 

 

Howdy-

I have a seizure alert dog- this is my 2nd one in the past 16 years. She alerts to me and only one other person- a stranger who was in our neuro's waiting room about three years ago. My buddy has a Golden who is also a SA dog. I hit the floor and her dog couldn't have cared less during one of the worst seizures I ever had. It never moved. 

I believe the dog needs to be clued in to you for things like SA, unsafe blood sugar levels, and other things that are unique to the person because we all produce certain metabolic changes that are unique to our situation. There are over 50 types of seizure disorders, not to mention some people have more than one type (I have three). I don't think it's possible to train the dog for all 50+ types and combinations. My aura is a specific odor, some people see halos, other people get no auras ahead of time. How do you reproduce that for training purposes?

As to having trouble going in public w/ a service dog, I recommend you read the ADA's stance on service dogs and carry the relevant portion with you in your wallet or purse. My dog goes everywhere with me, to the hospital, courthouse, grocery store, kids' schools, restaurants, etc. Yes, there are some places you can't take a dog (in the room while you're getting an MRI, for example). I've never had someone say I couldn't bring my dog in, but my dog is clearly working, not just going for a stroll in the mall. The ONLY obstacle I've run into, and it really isn't an obstacle when you think about it, is that a cashier wanted to pet my dog and did so while my back was turned (yes, her vest has in BIG letters, "Service Dog- WORKING, Please do not pet me". I was going to say nicely that it's important not to pet a service dog without asking the handler first, but she mentioned how pretty my Boxer was. I said she wasn't a Boxer... She's a Pit Bull. The cashier FREAKED! "I'm afraid of Pit Bulls!!" and made the manager finish my transaction. What a nitwit!

The GSD pup I'm training for my buddy (the actual owner/breeder... I'm just the trainer for the service dog side of things) is going to be a mobility assistance dog that gets donated to a veteran in need. Providing stability, retriving specific objects, etc can be taught. Would I say she's a seizure alert dog, even if she ended up indicating for me? NOPE. But she'll be fully obedience trained on/off lead, social and calm in all situations, and there to give the vet a feeling of independence... all free of charge. Here's Anka at the Homecoming Parade, just before we headed off to watch a bit of flag football and enjoy the pep rally. I took off her vest so she could play in the pasture for a while, but she wanted to stick around to watch the tractors first.

I wish you the best,

-- Jo

No hearing impairment, it's a sleep disorder.  The only sound that will wake me is a crying baby (and it doesn't have to be loud, guess that's maternal instinct kicking in)  and I haven't had one of those for decades! 

My neighbors know that if they hear Drake barking at night and I'm not quieting him, I'm most likely sleeping and they'll investigate further. 

It is not people in businesses themselves that really cause a problem when I am in public with mine but more the idiots also visiting those places. Other day a college kid ran up and pulled his tail as he was laying under table at the library while I was researching something. I have had him in a sporting goods place that has things for our boat and he was on a down beside me while my husband was selecting somehing this woman comes sprinting across the store and leaps sliding on the floor landing on him and she starts grabbing him in a bear hug!! I expected honestly to have her caretaker come up panting to say please forgive this woman she has mental difficulties but nope, just rude. A very good thing my dog is so enviromentally sound.

Actually, Blood sugar alerts can be trained, if you have a sample of the blood.  Simple, same as any other detection dog.  You get blood from the client, several samples.  Low, high and normal.

You train the dog to "search" the low and the high.  You reward him for a passive or aggressive alert.  You do not reward the normal sugar levels. 

The alert can be anything you want.  I train the low sugar alerts as a down, with the dog pawing at the human's left thigh.  I train the high as a the dog sitting and pawing at the human's right thight. 

Seizure dogs, generally start out as response dogs.  They respond to the seizure by getting help, lying on the person during the seizure, bringing med kit to the person after seizure, etc.

My current dog, Largo, alerted to a dog's seizures.  I had a 7 yr old FInkie, who developed epilepsy. She would alert to his seizures prior to them happening.  When I realized what she was doing, I had her bring me his leash and collar that was kept at his crate.  She was never wrong.  We lost him, about 2 yrs ago.

I also have low blood sugar.  Her alerts for my seizures are different than her alerts for my sugar.  I was ignoring her alerting one night.  Next thing I know, she is handing me a pepsi from the fridge.  She had been trained to get drinks from the fridge, as I often have friends with me, that are disabled and use her when they are visiting.  I looked at her like she had lost her mind.  Why ws she bringing me a drink at 3 in the AM?  Then I realized that when my sugar would get low, I would go to fridge and get a drink or a yogurt.  She had observed me enough to problem solve her way through this.  Mom's breath is funky, mom is cranky, mom goes to big white box and eats, mom is no longer cranky and her breath isn't funky.  Mom won't listen to me, so I will go to white box and bring her a metal can.  Then maybe she won't be cranky anymore.  When she did that, my sugar was 45.  Almost dead low.

Oh, yea, and I still scuba dive and ride horses without harnesses.  I have a motorcycle too.  I ride it, without my dog present.....wow.....

Medical alert dogs are an invaluable asset to my elderly parents. However, I supplement their care with a medical alert button, which I feel allows all bases to be covered -- 1. having an in-person aid (the alert dog) while also having access to 2. immediate dispatch for emergency services, if a dire emergency comes to pass. Maybe some people will feel this is overkill, but to me, the added cost is marginal and my peace of mind has increased a thousand-fold. Good luck to all in their searches!

Our Kali has alerted to my low blood sugar, & literally drug me into the kitchen to the refrigerator. When I checked my blood sugar, the meter read LLL...too low to read. Now she & I are both ill, & she's like velcro. She keeps sitting down in front of me & pawing at me. I'm on steroids right now & my sugars are all over the place....poor thing, she's ill too, & I'm driving her nutz with my wacked blood sugars, too. A couple nights now she hasn't let me sleep, but kept waking me up; it finally dawned on me to check my sugar, either very low or very high. It must be so hard for her, dealing with her own illness & pain; & knowing that I'm sick, too. I wonder if that's why she's holding her own right now? That would be the GSD way, fight back her own disease to help me with mine. WHAT A DOG! jackie harris

DAMN! Jackyie that made me tear up!