June 13, 2012
Today Mike and I left for Seattle, where he works. While we were waiting at the Gainesville airport, we saw this dog:
Mike went over to ask if he could pet the dog and noticed the 'working dog' harness on it. The harness said "Diabetes Dog" and Mike had never heard of that. He spoke with the owners for a while and found out that indeed, this dog had been trained to detect when diabetics were high or low on blood sugar. Some are trained to stare at you, some are trained to nose you, some are trained to jump up on you. We found out which method this dog had been trained with when it jumped on Mike later as we were boarding the plane. He tested himself after we were seated and sure enough, he was starting to crash. Good dog!
Mike looked into what was involved in getting one of these dogs, and it was pretty difficult. They cost a lot because the training is expensive. I think he said he found some web sites where the lowest starting price was $15K. He checked into one of the training places only to find they were no longer participating. He's going to keep looking.
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