Recently I have fielded many questions from various places about diabetic alert dogs. DAD’s are a lot of HARD WORK…but in my opinion they are worth the amount of effort it takes. Compared to dealing with diabetes DAD’s are easy…on top of diabetes it can seem insurmountable. Honestly not everyone with diabetes is a good fit for a DAD….not every DAD is a good fit for that particular person. It is a team thing and there is so much that we don’t know.
I currently have 5 alerting dogs at my house at various stages in training. I have Bravo, Radar, Puzzle, Freedom, and Maxx. Two of those five are permanent fixture, the other 3 are here for a time….for a reason and for a season. There is a lot of humor when I go high or low and the dogs are all alerting. The mental picture of the stare, the pawing, the smacking on the head, the howling in the kennel, and the bringsel’s or meters in mouth is FUNNY…but when you are low and still trying to deal with diabetes…..it also can make you ONRY! Sometimes I can hardly get to the meter or the treatment of the low or high with all the dogs around me. It is very interesting if you like dogs and dog behavior.
I live, eat, and breath dogs. Thank goodness….but I have to tell you I really don’t like deciding where dogs go. It hurts my heart. I LOVE training dogs. I love being with the dogs. I love what they teach me and watching them grow….but WHO AM I TO DECIDE WHO GETS THESE DOGS?????? It is frustrating to put your heart and soul into a dog and then for whatever reason the dog won’t do what it is suppose to do for the new person. It is frustrating when you get calls like….”I am not going to dialysis because it just isn’t worth it but I NEED a diabetic alert dog. It is frustrating when you spend time and energy in training and the dogs are treated like a soldier and because they didn’t take the order …they are bad dog or you are a bad trainer.
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