Dogs Are The Best Friends Of Diabetics
The important help that dogs provide to people with disabilities is well known.
They never stop surprising us when it comes to how useful they can be. So it turned out that dogs are authentic friends of the
diabetic
are.
We now know through research that dogs are able to warn epileptic people just before they have an attack. They can also recognize some forms of cancer and have a special sensitivity that helps them to accompany people with mental disabilities. Now we also know that dogs can detect diabetes too .
Dogs are diabetics’ best friends
Some diabetics have noticed their dogs acting strangely just before they had a blood sugar crisis. Their pets wanted to let them know that something was wrong.
Inspired by these situations, the first studies were conducted to prove whether dogs could recognize the low blood sugar levels that are dangerous for diabetics. It turned out that our body changes its smell when a chemical change takes place in it. Dogs can perceive these changes thanks to their fine sense of smell.
Assistance dogs are great friends of diabetics
There are two types of dogs that help diabetics:
- Diabetic Warning Dogs. These animals warn the diabetic if the blood sugar level rises or falls too much.
- Assistance dogs. Even if they do not notice the changes in the blood sugar level, these dogs are trained to bring the diabetic his medication or to inform another person about the situation.
Training of diabetic warning dogs
Right now there aren’t many centers where dogs are trained to detect diabetes. The training is a detailed and difficult job, but the demand for these very special helpers is growing every day. You are really a great support, especially if the diabectic is a child.
The four-pawed friends of diabetics receive a training program that is personally tailored to them. This is how they recognize the smell of their owner and possible changes. So each dog is only trained for one person. It should be noted that we excrete a number of hormones when we have hypoglycaemia.
While this type of training is not cheap, it is a real investment. The dogs are trained to recognize low or high blood sugar levels and to warn people with signals.
This is possible thanks to their great sense of smell. Dogs are also trained to sniff out drugs or bombs. This is why they are trained to identify different smells that people with insulin insufficiency excrete. The dogs are trained to use their sense of smell to recognize changes in blood sugar levels and to compare them with the normal smell of their owner.
The best breeds for diabetic warning dog training
While all dogs have the ability to detect abnormal situations in their owners through their sense of smell and intuition, some breeds are more suitable than others. For example, Labradors or Golden Retrievers are most commonly used in this type of training. Because these breeds have a particularly keen sense of smell, it is easy for them to spot changes in their owner’s blood sugar levels.
But there is more good news. Various studies have shown that these animals, which we call man’s best friends , can also identify people who have tumors in the bladder, ovaries, lungs or skin.
Other diseases
Some training centers train the dogs to recognize various diseases. In this way, the animals can warn of an epileptic attack or a low blood sugar level. You can even tell where a patient has cancer.
While there is still no scientific evidence that dogs can detect pregnancy in a woman, there are still many cases that tell us about it. It is believed that the dogs, through their incredible sense of smell, can detect changes in hormones in pregnant women.
In some cases, cats and dogs, friends of diabetics, have even shown the ability to foresee death. The most famous of these four-legged friends is Oskar. The cat lives in an old people’s home on Rhode Island (USA), where he lies down next to the people in the home who die that same day.
