Seth-7 yrs, Dx on Jan. 15th 2007
Rex – 7 months, British Lab
Seth was diagnosed when he was 4 yrs old and was pumping in 3 months. As parents of a child with Diabetes we felt we wanted a back up method of safety to prevent seizures, hypoglycemia unawareness, and long term complications, so we set out to get a DAD. I first heard of DADs in an article from Diabetes Health in 2007 and proceeded to research and try and contact any training facilities. We decided to wait until Seth was older before we attempted to move in that direction and add a dog to the diabetes mix.
After MUCH research, we adopted Rex in June of 2009, when he was only 6 weeks old. Training began immediately!
Rex is now 7 months old and alerts before high’s and low’s. He has a very sweet and loving personality and truly has been patient with all our miss haps.
Rex sleeps with Seth and has started alerting us at night with exhuberance.
Our goal is to have Rex ready for the Canine Good Citizen test by 2 yrs old.
Unexpected experiences…
1-Bringing a pup to the zoo is not really a good idea
2- Flying with a 6 week old pup and a 6 yr old takes 3 parents NOT 2
3- Service dog bags are bigger than diaper bags
4- Too much Peanut Butter causes diarrhea and refer to #2
5-Pups don’t like the smell of Sea Lion’s
6-Vommtting happens / refer to #2
7-7 yr olds don’t like their toys eaten
8-7 yr olds don’t like “the TAIL”
9-Adults can’t read ” Don’t Pet the service dog” patch
10- Americans can’t help but TALK to dogs when seen in public
11-Arizona pavement is 170 degrees in the summer
12- Labs get heavy/ refer to #11
13- Labs also know how to unbuckle children’s seat-belts while driving in traffic at a high rate of speed
14-Labs REALLY like Christmas tree ornaments
15- To be Continued in the years to come…