Epilepsy Alert dogs - Page 1

Does anybody know the best place/person to go to,re. the training of Epilepsy Alert dogs? I am epileptic and as my health is getting worse, I am considering having one of my shepherds trained as an alert dog. My bitch, Lyssa is very 'in tune' with my auras(not that I can recognise them,but she can), and I was wondering, is it possible to have her specifically trained for this? TIA,Angie.

As far as I know the most important thing is to have a dog that can visibly let you know when a seizure is coming on. As far as putting a noticable alert cue on the dog you would probably be able to talk to any service dog training center. There are also a lot of groups on yahoo that help people try to train their own dogs I am not sure if there is anyone out there that will take your own private personal dog into training to be used by yourself later. Where are you located? There is a group out of Austin that is supposed to be pretty good.

Angie, The Answer is yes. go to http://www.epilepsy.com/articles/ar_1084289240.html to read more about Epilepsy Alert dogs.

Goose and Brittany....Thank you for your replies! I will check out some articles and see what I can find out. As I am in the UK, it might be more difficult as I know in the US, you can actually train your own service dog.Here in Britain, you can't(or at least you can't do that and get it recognised as a service dog). Will let you know how I get on.:-)))))) Angie.

Chikara, Out of curiosity... are you fully aware that you are about to have a seizure? The best way for you to train your dog is to call your dogs name (or use a special command) each time you feel one coming. I strongly do not recommend you doing this kind of training alone... I would do this when theirs a professional and licensed nurse present. I found some yahoo groups that may help you to train your dog http://groups.yahoo.com/group/seizurealertdogs/ http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/epilepsycircle/ and http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/epilepsysupportandeducation/ I don't know how good theses groups are but this is for a start.