A Labrador named Shirley who is a medical assistance dog spends the entire day with Rebecca in school ensuring that her life is not in danger.
7 year old, Rebecca Farrar has an aggressive form of Type1
Diabetes which means that she could have a hypoglycemic attack any time that could
send her into a coma. Young Rebecca cannot tell when her blood sugar levels
(BSL) are becoming too high or low. But this girl has a Labrador named Shirley
who is a medical assistance dog and spends the entire day with Rebecca in
school ensuring that her life is not in danger. Rebecca has to rely on Shirley's
extraordinary sense of smell. Shirley has been trained for about a year to
sniff this problem by the charity Medical
Detection Dogs.
When the dog notices a change in Rebecca's blood sugar levels
she continuously licks her until Rebecca or her teacher notices this. Still if
Shirley gets no response with this, she sits on Rebecca's lap or has been trained
to go and fetch the medical testing kit in the classroom at Harpole Primary
School in Northamptonshire. Once Shirley has done her job,
classroom assistant Theresa Hodgkiss, tests Rebecca's blood sugar level and if it
is low, she gives her some sugar, and if it is too high, she administers an
insulin injection.
Rebecca's mother, Claire, said, "If Shirley can't wake her up during
the night she comes into my bedroom and gets me up. It's like Lassie." Claire
Guest from Medical Detection Dogs said, "We taught the dogs to be alert to
low blood sugar odor and once the dog learns that we teach them to distinguish
normal from low and then it's easy from then on."
Source-Medindia