Disease-Sensing Dogs to Save Human Life

Recently there has been a lot of attention focusing on canine pets that alert owners with serious diseases before they become extremely ill.

An example of this is Shirley the Labrador. Shirley saved a six-year-old child with type 1 diabetes from collapsing at a disco. Rebecca was dancing with her friends when Shirley detected that Rebecca's blood sugar was dropping. The Lab then proceeded to take the blood sugar testing kit out of her owner's medical bag to warn Rebecca. By being trained to do so Shirley, who is one of only ten dogs that are capable of detecting blood sugar, saved Rebecca from collapsing from low blood sugar.

Research into using canines to help people with illnesses will also give many dogs a second chance in life. Eddie, a three year old terrier cross was abandoned at a rescue centre in Sheffield as his owners had found him to be too high energy for them. However this was the exact trait Eddie needed to become a huge help for Andrew Eccle. Eddie has been trained to warn Andrew, who is epileptic, when he's about to have a seizure. This is to give Andrew the chance to make sure he is somewhere safe to wait for the seizures to pass without hurting himself or his daughter.

There is no concrete evidence to show how the dog is able to predict when a seizure is about to occur but there are a few theories including that the dog may be able to sense disturbances in the electric field which is caused by seizures.

Sheffield Support Dogs is currently the only charity in the UK that train dogs to predict seizures. This training costs the charity £10,000 per dog which is raised purely through donations.