Training Your Diabetic Alert Dog

Book excerpt: The Scent of Safety You can harness dogs' amazing sense of smell to manage your diabetes. Many dogs can perform this life-saving task, but they must be trained if you are to produce a reliable diabetic alert service dog (DAD). The authors bring to this book extensive experience in training for diabetic alert and assistance dog work in particular, and over half a century of training dogs for search & rescue, obedience, and therapy in general. They will guide you through this process step by step. This book helps diabetics train their own dog with the help of a professional trainer, and explains how to: o Select a great dog for alert work o Find and work with a qualified trainer o Understand how dogs detect changes in diabetic blood sugar levels o Train alerts and low/high blood sugar signals o Teach your dog to alert at night and in the car o Train other helpful skills such as Go for Help, trailing the diabetic, and retrieving useful items (glucometer, juice box, etc.) o Troubleshoot training difficulties o Locate additional resources on training and assistance dogs And when you are done, you will experience the freedom that comes from knowing a canine friend is looking out for you.