I am currently looking for anyone that has or that has heard of the Diabetic Alert Dogs. Any advice?
Megan, there are tons of hits on Google, I dont' know which ones are legit but here's one
http://www.dogs4diabetics.com/
The deal is that the dogs can sense when a person is going low and can provide awareness. I do not have any real experience with them, my hypo awareness is still strong even after 30+ years with T1.
Good luck
Hello! My 16 month old was just diagnosed this last weekend and I have trained dogs for almost 7 years. Just within two days of being home now, I have been just personally working on one of our dogs that have a close bond with our son. She is, so far, able to detect scents of low sugars as well as the slightest smell of keytones. Any other questions? Let me know!
That is amazing! I actually own a lab and a beagle. But I have allergies to my lab. That is my only concern with having a dog in the house. Any techniques would be great! I would love to talk with you more about your child being diagnosed. My son Austin was 11months old when he was diagnosed and he is two years old now. We are on an insulin pump, but because it is hard to tell with children their age when they are running high and low because they cannot tell you how they feel. I dealt with a diabetic dog trainer locally and they were really discouraging and stated that I needed to wait until my child was around 9 years old to get one trained. Where are you from, and what kind of dog do you have?
Hi Megan, we have a 2 1/2 year old daughter with diabetes and are looking into this ourselves right now - from what I have heard and read, the trained dogs are highly reccomended and it works. From the brief info I have so far, It takes a while for the training and the trainers provide the dog but they have a high success rate. The one we have been talking with is called Pawsabilities Unleashed in Frankfort Kentucky. I know thats not close to you but they may be able to get you in contact with someone closer to you. Hope this helps. And according to them there's no age you have to wait for.
Our family has one! We got it from dogs4diabetics. They are non profit, the dogs cost you nothing...they are amazing. The bad news is they work out of California and are now only accepting applications from Arizona, oregon, utah and Washington...maybe Idaho? You can check out their website to learn more. I know there are other organizations around the country that offer dogs, but they are thousands of dollars, sometimes tens of thousands. Also with the D4D program the child needs to be 12 years old to qualify for the program so they can safely handle the dog.
I'm happy to answer any questions about the dogs. Ours is amazing...and yup, he really can smell a low, or better yet, he can smell when a childs sugar is dropping fast. I am sane because of him! There are posts in my blog archive about our dog Lawton. You can find me at ourdiabeticlife.blogspot.com
Yes, I have been in contact with Pawsabilities Unleashed but that is alot of money. I am the only parent working right now and we may try to do fundraisers to help get the money for a dog. But they seem like a great organization.