Sniffing out illnesses

WHEN you’re diabet tic, your body has problems maintaining healthy blood d sugar levels. These levels can drop too low ( called hypoglycemia) or go up too high ( called hypergly ycemia); either way, it’s dangerous.

As your blood suga ar levels fluctuate, your blood chemistry y changes, too. One effect of these chang es is that your breath will smell slig ghtly differently. Diabetes Service Dog gs have been trained to sniff out th hese changes.

When the dog sme ells trouble, he or she will al lert the person with a specia al sign. Usually this is done through a nudge or giving a paw. In a sense, th herefore, the pet is traine ed; and the human is too be cause they have to learn to o recognise the signal!

When the person with diabetes is alerted, t they check their blood su ugar level and take the ap ppropriate action.

Some Diabetes Service e Dogs are also trained to fetch a gluco ose tablet, bottle of juice or other “qui ick fix” that’s prescribed. There are even pets who will retrieve an em mergency phone or alert other m embers of the household. It takes time to identify dogs that ca an do this kind of work, and it ta kes a lot of expert training. As su uch, these assist dogs are still relative ely rare. They’re also very expensive, w which is why they’re usually sponsored th hrough charities. Havin ng dogs work assisting jobs isn’t new bu ut it is becoming more common. In ad ddition to Diabetes Service Dogs, there are dogs that are trained to alert and su upport people with conditions like Ad ddison’s Disease, Postural Tachyca ardia Syndrome and life- threatening al llergies that can cause unconsciousne ss. There e is also increased interest in discoveri ing if dogs can reliably sniff out canc cer and other illnesses. IsI it any wonder that dogs are Man’sM Best Friend?