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Registering my pooch as an assistance dog.

R

Rnr1975

Member
Messages
17
Type of diabetes
Type 1
our rescued Rottweiler has been with us two months now and has detected every hypo I have had before I realised. How do I go about having her registered as an assistance dog??
 
Hi there @Rnr1975 ,

I can't realy help you on that one. But I am a dog owner.

The cynical side of me would suggest that your dog can smell & associate when you are low, then sense when there might be food on the go...
I own a cairn terrier, oddly when he hears either my desktop computor powering down or the flip of my cover on the iPad or maybe closing & latching the conservatory door? He knows it's time for a walk. (We exit out the kitchen door.)
He wears a harness & even mimics putting putting it on by shifting his head to one side & raising his right paw to step into it?

There is a long training period & a fair bit of monitory investment in an official hypo alert dog. I read somewhere in the region of 6 grand?

Some dogs have a natural ability to pick up on thier human "pack leaders." & make a prediction on what's comming from thier own perspective..
 
Rnr1975 said:
How do I go about having her registered as an assistance dog??
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Hi. I believe that your dog would need a lot of training and an assessment before being registered as an assistance dog. There's a lot more to it than the dog being able to sense when you are going to have a hypo I'm afraid. They have to be so well behaved and trained to handle different circumstances and situations.
 
I volunteer at a very popular tourist attraction. Every Man and their dog (pun intended) think they can take their pet pooch anywhere by calling it an assistance dog. If you dog is a good at detecting Hypos sleep with it. If you have poor Hypo awareness get a cgm or test every 30min while you are awake and job done.

There are very strict rules around assistance dogs. They must be tightly restricted as dogs are dogs, so if there is a lot of temptations of other dogs there could be disasters, not for you so much as your hypo awareness has just run off to play with another dog, but if that other dog is guide dog, there could be catastrophic consequences for the blind person whose guide dog is now chasing or being chased by hypo awareness.

There is a lot of material in this for a good comedian...
 
For an assistance dog... it’s not just recognising a hypo... it’s getting you a treatment and blood meter too. Being able to stir you... if you had a life line and lived by yourself they would need to push the lifeline button.. which would activate loud alarms in the home and contact the services that would call an ambulance.

A hypo alert dog is trained from your breath and will wake you up at night and bring you the hypo stoppers... it will do certain trained aspects to ensure you are safe not just recognising a hypo..

The dogs have to work for you at all times and be able to sense a hypo when they are playing or distracted and stop everything and assist you. They must be able to walk without pulling on lead etc, which is just basic.

There are strict criteria to a dog becoming a hypo alert dog.

My friend has a canine partner assistance dog and the training she has done with him is unbelievable. It will pick up his own treat to give back to her if she drops it!!! My dog would rather eat any hypo stoppers than give them to me. She recognised hypo’s but will not stop eating hypo treats if she had to give them to me!!:)
 
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