First Alert

At first, we though Murphy's agitation was due to the intense skunk smell coming into the car on our way to William's basketball game. Because we had a full car, she was sitting in the wheel well at my feet. (We are working on getting her a harness seatbelt.) She, however, climbed on my lap, up on my shoulder, and was desperately trying to get into the backseat with William. 

The Dexcom CGM showed he was 159 and climbing, but I asked him to test. He was 189 and climbing. She would not settle. I assured her that we were working on it, had William thank her, and she watched him use the PDM to bolus insulin. I gave her treats and finally, she started settling down, though clearly still agitated.

"How do you train them to do that?" is probably the most common question I get while in public after told that Murphy is to be a Diabetic Alert Dog. My answer is that these dogs can detect these changes without training. The key is training them to communicate (alert) what they already know and to train ourselves to pick up their alert. It is easy to doubt ourselves that we are experiencing her alert. Even in this case, we wondered if the skunk smell, unfortunately simultaneously encountered with a rising BG, was the cause of her distress. It certainly distressed me.

The high alert, I'm told, is easier for dogs to detect. Likely, they smell ketones in the breath. For lows, the chemical isoprene is likely what the dog detects. This first alert is encouraging. Maybe we'll figure all this out after all.

While at the game, we got two of the best compliments you can get for a service dog. The first was that a woman finally noticed Murphy, exclaiming, "Oh, there is a dog here! I hadn't even noticed her." (She was sleeping in the bleachers.) Later, she turned to me (as Murphy continued to behave) and said, "That is not a normal puppy." 

Weight this week: 28.5 pounds at 15 weeks