Dogs Could Be a Diabetic's Best Friend

Demand for the dogs is high; more than 100 people are on the waiting list.

Dogs for Diabetics uses Labrador retrievers that don't graduate from guide dog school. These dogs usually flunk for reasons such as refusing to walk in the rain or step onto an escalator -- all skills important for being a working dog, but not a general assistance one.

Ruefenacht said his dogs undergo three to four months of training similar to what is used to prepare dog to detect narcotics or explosives. The 2-year-old canines are first taught to detect scent samples of low blood sugar. Then they learn to find that scent on people, and alert others by holding in their mouth a soft tube that hangs from around their neck.

Dogs that successfully complete training are 90 percent accurate, Ruefenacht said.

These clever canines aren't the only ones that must learn new tricks.

Mary Simon has battled diabetes for more than three decades, and she now drives four hours each week from her home in Fresno to attend the required class.

"I need this dog desperately," said Simon, a diabetic who is also medical director for the Diabetic Youth Foundation in Concord, Calif.

Medication she takes hampers her ability to feel nighttime lows, she said, and the special glucose sensor she wears doesn't always work.

When Simon first learned of the hypoglycemic detection dogs a few years ago, she didn't think their talent was needed because glucose sensors were about to hit the market. Since then, she's changed her mind.

"My own personal experience is we need [the dogs] right now," she said.

Not everyone is so quick to put their trust in the canines' ability.

Larry Myers, a veterinarian and professor at Auburn University in Alabama, has trained dogs to detect everything from drugs to agricultural pests for 25 years. He said the jury is still out on whether dogs can truly detect low blood sugar levels, but he believes it's a possibility worth exploring.

Even though dogs have amazing olfactory abilities, he said they are not universally sensitive to all chemicals.

"Do hypoglycemic individuals, in fact, emit an odor that is characteristic? I don't know, and I don't think anybody does know right now," he said.

A possibility other than scent is the dogs are picking up on visual cues, which is thought to be the case with seizure detection dogs. Such dogs allegedly can pick up on extremely subtle physiological changes in their human companion that may begin five to 45 minutes before an actual attack. The dogs then warn the humans so they can find a safe environment or take precautionary measures.

"It turns out what the dogs are really sensitive to is subtle changes in behavior of the individuals just prior to seizing," Myers said. "It's more of a fact that dogs are very, very, very observant of human behavior."

More information

To learn more about diabetes, visit the American Diabetes Association.

SOURCES: Deborah L. Wells, Ph.D., senior lecturer, school of psychology, Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland; Mark Ruefenacht, founder, Dog for Diabetics, Concord, Calif.; Mary Simon, M.D., certified diabetologist, and medical director, Diabetic Youth Foundation, Concord, Calif.; Larry Myers, DVM, Ph.D, associate professor, animal behavior and sensory physiology and medicine, Auburn University