Some of my favorite stories are about Dogs who act as tireless, loyal guardians of and for humans with disabilities. From the Daytona Beach News:
PALM COAST -- The mammoth dog plops herself on the couch. With Lacey's basketball-sized head leaning over the armrest, she'll occasionally plunk it down or scratch a spot on her shiny black fur -- as little movement as needed to find a comfortable position.Coming face to face with the slobbery giant, the average person might not recognize Lacey as a hero. In fact, this bull mastiff is on a mission every night.
Her owner, 56-year old Sandi Montagna suffers from brittle diabetes, a condition in which the blood-glucose level fluctuates from high to low. When it elevates, she gets sleepy. And that's when it can get dangerous. If she's sleeping, she doesn't know when to pump more insulin into her system.
That's when Lacey dutifully plants herself in front of her sleeping owner's face and barks until Montagna gets up and takes in more insulin. Without the alert, Montagna could fall into a coma.
"I don't know why, but it happens," Montagna said. "I'm glad."
Although Montagna insists Lacey can smell the change in her system, some experts contend Lacey's reaction could be associated with their emotional connection. It happened randomly five years ago, without any kind of training. Lacey, who sleeps on the bed near Montagna, jumped off the bed and walked over to the other side of the bed, the closest access to Montagna's face.
"I thought it was a freak thing the first time it happened," Montagna said. But Lacey has done it ever since.
The 130-pound bull mastiff that stands waistline-high saves her owner from slipping into a precarious condition about three times a month.
"When I go to bed at night, she's on duty," Montagna said.
The article sounds surprised that a Bullmastiff would "develop" an instinct to carefully watch over and protect its family. Duh, that's what they were bred to do! All good guard dogs are empathetic enough to pick up cues from their masters about dangers.
She's not the only diabetic-alert dog, either. I'd read about a German Shepherd elsewhere in a veterinarian's casefiles that alerted for her owner's blood sugar crashes. My husband is diabetic, and our Siamese cat has been upset enough by some of his more severe crashes to come and get me. It's not a hard pattern for a remotely empathetic animal to learn, I think.
Posted by: LabRat at October 4, 2004 07:07 PM