This has taken me awhile to check out,
but it is for real and New Zealand will shortly have its first
trained diabetes response dog. Service dogs are not new to New
Zealand, but there are dogs for the blind, hearing impaired, and for
mobility or disability assistance.
In researching the topic of service
dogs in New Zealand, I found out that they have dogs for security,
police dogs, and other service dogs. New Zealand is up front in
their rules and regulations more than the USA and very clear about
who is in charge and the procedures to be followed. The USA is
obtuse and too lenient with their regulations. There are rules for flying on New Zealand's airlines, for entering the country
(importing) your service dog and what must be done beforehand.
The dogs for diabetes resulted after
Merenia Donne was injured in a serious car accident. She established
a charity to train disability assistance dogs because her dog saved
her life by pulling her from the wreckage. The charity, “the
Kotuku Foundation Assistance Animals Aotearoa has been training dogs
to help people deal with a range of conditions including agoraphobia,
autism, OCD and Parkinson's.”
The Kotuku Foundation Assistance
Animals Aotearoa is not yet reflected on the list of approved
organizations for certifying service dogs, but this does not mean it
may not be approved. This New Zealand government website lists the
regulations for assistance dogs. Once trained, two-year-old German
shepherd 'Uni' will be able to smell abnormal blood sugar levels.
Merenia Donne said in talking about
characteristics for a diabetic response dog, “What you look for
is a dog that's a very busy dog and a dog that likes to use its nose.
So they're are little bit a kin to training a dog for drug
detection, and explosives and various other things like...search and
rescue dogs, so the training follows some of the principles. You
need a dog that's willing and happy to use its nose all day everyday,
but in doing so, to focus just on that one very important key sense."
Ms Donne says the dog can then take steps to alert the person or seek assistance.
"They will have a rubber rod or
a toy that hangs from their collar and they're taught to grasp it as
they sense a change in blood chemistry," she said. "That
it will give a clear signal to the person who's beginning to go into
a hypoglycaemic event. If it's progressed beyond that point, and the
person is incoherent...then what the dog is also trained to do is to
push an alarm button or to go and find someone."
Ms Donne says 'Uni' is in the final
six-months of training - a process which costs around $NZ50,000 or
USD equivalent of $41,455.
Some links that may be interesting
about service dogs in New Zealand -
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