Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
‘Gull attacks’ stopping dog’s lifesaver lessons
A PERTH mum is unable to train her dog to potentially save her son’s life due to “dive-bombing” gulls.
Amanda Thomson, 52, is trying to teach her one-year-old fox red labrador, Flash, to be a medical detection dog for Jamie, 15, who has type 1 diabetes.
Jamie’s condition has left him in comas and he has spent several nights in Perth Royal Infirmary having fallen unconscious.
But Ms Thomson says intimidation from gulls nesting nearby is making it unsafe for her to work in her garden with Flash, for whom she paid £2,000 specifically for medical purposes.
A recent attack by a divebombing gull forced her and Flash to dash inside their home.
However, Ms Thomson grew up by the sea and had no issues whatsoever. She has lived in Oakbank since 2005. Generally clean and tidy, it is one of Perth’s furthest spots from the Tay.
Inexplicably, the gulls have decided to nest here – there are currently three chicks in a nest on a roof in Muircroft Terrace West, and a suspected nest at Viewlands Primary School.
“They get defensive when they have fledglings,” said Ms Thomson’s husband Neil, 52, who has lived in Holly Terrace for 20 years.
Perth High School student Jamie has already suffered some terrifying moments in his young life. After being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of eight, every effort has been made to keep his blood sugar levels stable.
He wears a Dexcom G6 sensor on his abdomen that provides a continuous glucose count and communicates with his mobile phone, activating an alarm if necessary.
“You can put all the technology in place, but when it fails and you are asleep it can be deadly,” Jamie said. “I have been unconscious, in comas and in hospital too many times.”
Jamie discovered that a medical detection dog could compensate for the limitations of technology.
Once fully trained, Flash will be able to detect unusual changes in Jamie’s body odour that may signify a glucose imbalance and raise the alarm.
“This is a working dog I have spent a lot of money on,” Ms Thomson said.
“I want to be out doing heel work, but knowing these gulls are going to swarm us, I don’t like that.”
Ms Thomson believes she has good reason to be anxious after a terrifying incident last week.
She recalled: “I had been walking the dog and out of nowhere a gull came, right from behind. The dog even got a fright. It turned round and came back again.
“Some time elapsed before I decided to go out to the shed for something.
“I don’t know where it came from. It was straight down and it was like ‘whoosh’. I screamed, I yelped. Neil came running out – it was relentless. I, like others, have had enough of this.
“Taking the dog out isn’t much fun when you have seagulls circling overhead and swooping down from behind to catch you unawares – only to turn and dive-bomb you again.”