Type 1 Diabetic Alert Dogs

Diapanda said:

Hello!

I've been thinkg about getting a diabetic alert dog as I have type 1 diabetes and think that a dog could be helpful since I am becoming an independent adult. I was just wondering if I should since I am a young adult and getting a dog is a big responsibility. I am thinking of getting a poodle since I need a hypoallergenic breed. I can't find much information online about this especially not in my country so any thoughts about getting an alert dog are welcome and preferably experiences with having one!

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Hi Diapanda - You speak about finding information "in your country". It could be worthwhile indicating which country you live in, as that could influence responses you receive.

Diapanda said:

I can't find much information online about this especially not in my country

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What country do you live in?

If you google

utube train hypoglycaemic dogs

there are a number of videos on training hypo dogs. You'll need to collect scent lures whenever you are hypo, so that you can use them for training the dog.

Looking at the faqs of @ert 's link, it looks like you'd need to be severely hypo unaware to qualify for a dog trained by them, though they would help you train your own if you live near enough to them.

But you are right, getting a dog is a very big commitment. At your age, I probably wouldn't do this unless my hypo awareness was pretty poor. It's not just a question of training the dog to be hypo aware, it also has to be at a very high level of training generally so that it can go out and about with you as a hypo dog. And most of the dogs initially owned by adults under 25 seem to end up living with the parents of those adults for large portions of their lives, just because it is so difficult for a young person new to adult life to find work and accommodation suitable for both them and their dog. So I'd recommend getting your parents on board for this one. (And as regards cost, it's probably cheaper to self fund a dexcom with alerts than buy, own and train a dog, so you'd only want to do this if you wanted a dog anyway.)

Good luck though. And if you do decide to do this, let us know how you go. I for one would be really interested.