My wifes best friend since childhood has a daughter (18) that has had diabeties for four years. She has to wear a pump and has had several episodes where she blacked out. Long story short she was an outgoing young woman before and now she's scared to leave home, afraid she'll have an episode and no one to help her. She knows we're having a litter soon and she's found several websites that train dogs to let their owners know when an episode is coming on. I know you can train a Lab to do just about anything and this girl is like a daughter to me so the pup is her's if she wants it. My question to the forum is this, does anyone have first hand info into this type of training and or experience with this? The medical costs have taken a toll and I don't want them wasting money if it's not a good idea. Also, this is so she can get out and have a normal life and if she's out and something happened to her because the dog didn't catch it, I would never forgive myself. Any info would be appreciated and thanks in advance.

I suggest you contact a service dog organization to inquire about the effectiveness of this idea. It sounds to me as if she has poor control of her diabetes that might benefit from medical evaluation and nutritional/exercise advice from an expert in managing diabetes.

There are several organizations on the internet, that's how she got the idea. And she has had trouble managing her diabeties WITH medical evaluaton and nutritional/exercise experts. She sees some of the best pediatric doctors/councilars in the country at Children's Hospital and even with their professional expertize she has problems. What I was asking for is a personal opinion or experience from lab people who may have first hand knowledge. TIA

In my experience with service dogs it is best to have the person contact an organization who specializes and thoroughly trains for this type of service. To offer a pup is very sweet, but these dogs are specially selected and specifically trained. Most reputable organizations offer the dogs at no cost to the person needing an assistance dog.

I have donated several pups over the years, most have become successful canine assistants and a few have washed out. Mine went as hearing ear dogs and physical assistants. The organization I worked with did not do the type of training you are looking for.

Dogs4Diabetes and Can Do Canine are two service dog organizations that provide dogs for people who have diabetes. Most of the dogs do not begin training to alert and retrieve objects to a downed person until they are about a year old and after they have completed considerable obedience training. And a great many donated dogs do not complete the training because they are not found to be suitable candidates. Some service dog organizations have fail out rates as high as 50% and some as low as 10%.

Despite the popularity of this idea, there actually have been law suits against service dog organizations that have provided dogs who could not adequately perform the behaviors. Whether they were not adequately trained or the behaviors were simply beyond the dogs has not yet been decided.

Perhaps your young friend would simply like a puppy as a companion.

I have 2 friends (one with high blood pressure, and the other with diabetes) and their own dogs alerts them to 'episodes'. There was no training, just the dog being in tune with its owner and alerting to body changes.
I have donated 2 puppies to a service dog organization. This organization is working with a university to better understand dogs alerting to the body's chemical changes that lead to seizures and diabetic episodes. The problem as they have explained it to me, is the reliably of being able to reproduce the situation so that they can train the dog.
I agree that maybe your friend would like a puppy as a companion.
Julia

I placed a Tartan Plaid daughter (Patti) with a family and with zero training she self appointed herself to be notifier to her owner when her owner's blood sugar went to low, (would go berserk and force her awake from a sweaty deep sleep), and a check of her blood sugar always confirmed that she was slipping under. About a year later, Patti expanded her skills to include alerting the owner when her 4 year old son was about to have a seizure. She still performs these valuable services in the family, and they are VERY appreciative of this gal.

Her daughter Meagan was placed with another family. The woman's mother got cancer and was using marijuana for medical pain relief. Meagan sensed the marijuana use in the mother and acted really strange around her when she had smoked it. The woman and I joked that when her kids became teens, Meagan would give them away in a heartbeat if they smoked up.

I believe some dogs just "have it" and are keenly sensitive to certain things, such as cancers, diabetes, etc. Maybe others not so much. Could account for the high drop-out rate the other poster spoke of.

Although it is undoubtedly true that some dogs teach themselves to identify problems, here's a description of the training of dogs who alert to low blood sugar and then are taught to respond in helpful ways:

"Diabetic alert dogs go through rigorous obedience training before starting specific diabetes-sensing training. At Dogs4Diabetics, handlers begin by sensitizing dogs to diabetic smells by using overturned buckets. Once dogs can find the right smells atop these buckets, the animals move on to associating these smells with people. Finally, the dogs are trained to go to a diabetic person on whom they scent blood-sugar changes, retrieve a specific small object and deliver it to the patient. This allows the owner to distinguish between a dog gently bumping as a blood-sugar alert--the object is the clue--from a dog bumping or pawing for other reasons. Other organizations train dogs to ring bells or adopt specific stances so there's a clear signal to owners when blood-sugar changes are taking place."

Dogs who alert to problems can also actually be taught to get help through special telephones on which dogs can call for help. Self-taught dogs cannot usually respond specifically to get help.

I have read a couple of articles on this and I believe it all started with a diabetic man that was a puppy raiser for a guide dog organization. He had a rxn after miscalculating exercise and intake and the dog pawed at him until he woke up and saved his life. There was also an account of a girl swimming and having a rxn and the dog alerted to it. Of course, I can not remember where I read it. I think this was in California. It was felt that about 1 in 1000 labs could sense this (ketones I think on the breath) without formal training, but the success rate in training labs to the scent was very promising. It was compaired to the breathalizer for alcohol. I would be very optimistic and be wary of people taking large sums of money to train. The organizations that I donate dogs to place all dogs free of charge.