sugar sniffer

I remember a year or so ago I saw a girl and her dog on Dlife; the dog had been trained to sense when the girl’s BG was going low and was able to warn her of it or others if needed. I’ll admit that the, ‘Timmy’s in trouble Lassie, show me where!’ jokes began to run through my head, but I also got a twinge of jealousy too. Even though I’ve got a pump that delivers precise amounts and a CGM device that’s designed to warn me of impending– these things are not idiot proof. (Ok, wait - let me retract that last part.) They aren’t without their problems. I still wake up with occasional highs or lows in the middle of the night, and these are perhaps worse then the ones in the day if for no other reason that it comes to you as a complete shock – wake up - boom - you’re low.

Then from today’s RSS feed I got a wire from ADA that spoke about the same type of idea, training dogs to tell when someone with diabetes is going low. (You can read it here.) So I fished around on the web and googled up http://www.heavenscentpaws.com/ .This is yet another great example of someone in the diabetes community with a personal involvement, trying to make it better for others dealing with the same disease. Click on their site and read their story for how just how they got involved.

I hope this becomes more mainstream. I would love to have my dogs warn me of highs and lows.