Detection Dogs: A Nose For Trouble

Aside from being 'seeing eye' dogs for the blind, dogs have been trained to help detect all kinds of things:

Explosives
Illegal drugs
Electronics (esp when stolen or being smuggled illegally)
Money
Guns
DVDs

As well as organic things:

Invasive mussels attached to boats and motors
Bumblebee nests (really!)
Crime and its causesf

*Did you know---Dogs have a sense of smell that is thousands of  times better than a human's. Dogs have about 220 million scent detectors, a human has only about 5 million. Dogs can detect the smell of the desired object even if it has been disguised using Vick's Vaporub, for one example.

But did you know there are dogs who work with people that have chronic diseases such as Diabetes, Epilepsy, mental disorders such as bipolar syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, PTSD, or anxiety?

The dogs receive training that causes them to alert the person to a dangerous situation. In the case of Diabetes, the dog is trained using sweat or breath vapors taken when the person is running dangerously low in blood glucose. When the person's glucose level is too low, he or she can lapse into coma or occasionally seizures. The dog alerts so the person corrects the low reading by taking in some form of glucose or carbs, such as juice, milk, or whatever works for that person.

Review the Triogenius blog about Diabetes to understand the disease better: November 1, 2012

Imagine the freedom having a helper dog by your side would give you. You could live much more independently and be able to move around and get out of the house whenever you wanted with your dog by your side.

Plus, your dog can carry supplies so you don't have to!

Here's an explanation of what medical helper dogs can do:

http://medicalservicedogs.com/what-are-service-dogs/

They can be trained to sense when someone is about to experience a seizure.

Check out this video that shows how the dogs are trained to sniff out cancer:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/269099.php


Here is an organization that trains Diabetic Alert Dogs in America:
http://diabeticalertdog.com/

Do you or does someone you know live in England? Here is a wonderful organization in England that trains these dogs and connects them to their owners: 

http://www.medicaldetectiondogs.org.uk/medical_alert.html