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Diabetes Alert Dogs and the BBC

tim2000s

Expert
Retired Moderator
Messages
8,936
Location
London
Type of diabetes
Type 1
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Other
Noticed this article this morning on the BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39217858

The game is spot the errors in the article, then ask some interesting questions of it. Especially given this research: http://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/4008/presentation/43884 Admittedly it's only a small sample, but it raises some interesting questions.

It showed that in the majority of cases, (73% of the time), CGM alerted ahead of dogs. Admittedly, the subject of the article may fall in the 27% or may not get on with CGM systems.

On the other hand, the rest of the article about dogs being biosensors was very interesting!
 

But a CGM sensor's undying devotion expires after a few short weeks.................
 
My friend has a dog in training - fascinating how the dog knows. We were travelling up the M1 together (our parents live one junction apart on the M25 so I take her down when I go down as she no longer drives).

The dog was not settled in the back of the car so we pulled off at the services - I said to her why don't you test your BG? Sure enough she was over 12 and that was why the dog was restless!
 
I mentioned alert dogs to some people at work, and am now under a lot of pressure to get one, not so much for my health but just because they love the idea of having a dog running around the office! We reckon we could scam Human Resources easily enough by just getting a normal pup and putting an alert dog jacket on it. Maybe just train it to bark when I show it my Libre reader....
 
Many years ago (in the 70s and 80s) our friend was a T1 and poorly controlled despite doing everything he was told to do, conscientiously. At the time, we had a cat. This cat wouldn't leave him alone at times. He said all cats were the same and decided it was the pear drop smell about him that caused it.
 
I saw the same article and as I've commented before, it is now a BBC requirement that all articles regarding diabetes have at least one major factual error.
 

I'm with your workmates.
Sounds like the perfect plan!

Wonder if i could wrangle it at my place...?
 
We've had 3 dogs......all small and all like children. Wherever we went the dogs came with us and always slept on or in our bed during the night and often had our food as well.
All of them were useless as hypo detection dogs but loved it when I was low. They knew that yummy food has coming and whatever went in my mouth was better in theirs including lucozade tablets which were like caviar to them. A whole packet apart from 2 tablets was munched up including the wrapper on our bedroom floor.
 
We have a labrador that I was going to try and train to be an alert dog. He's just a little too bouncy at the moment to know if he's detecting a hypo or just wants to lick my face....
 
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