What Does a Diabetic Alert Dog Do?
Diabetic alert dogs have an extraordinary ability to detect changes in blood sugar levels using their keen sense of smell.
When blood sugars fluctuate, either rising too high or falling too low, the body releases specific chemical compounds. These compounds create subtle changes in a person’s breath, smell, or saliva that humans cannot detect. A dog is trained to smell these compounds and alert their person that their blood sugar is changing and they need to take action.
How is a Diabetic Alert Dog trained?
Diabetic alert dogs are trained to smell the chemicals by using samples collected from individuals during episodes of high or low blood sugar. The dog will learn to recognize these smells and associate an alert behavior such as pawing, nudging, or even getting a blood sugar meter and sugar sources as needed.
They are also trained basic commands but also how to work in the “real world” because they accompany their handler everywhere they go. The dog will need to be able to alert when there are distractions, such as noise, crowds, people watching, skinny spaces and even other dogs.
It take months to train a diabetic alert dog, but they have lots to learn when it comes to increasing the independence of their handler as well as keeping them safe. This is a mentally and physically taxing job and they work 24/7/365.
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