What Tasks Can A POTS / Dysautonomia Alert Dog Do For Me?
Howard from Wichita Kansas has our question of the week. Howard has POTS, a form of Dysautonomia, and has heard that dogs can alert to POTS episodes. Howard was wondering if they can be trained to alert to his Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome and what additional tasks can a trained POTS alert dog perform. Listen to this weeks Medical Alert Dog Monday to find out what tasks a Dysautonomia alert dog can be trained to do and also hear a testimonial from one of our POTS students who had one of our Imprinted Puppies from our February 2017 Labradoodle litter.
So what do you think of our answer? Do you think because we have trained 5 POTS alert dogs that we are not experts in medical alert dog training? What other tasks do you think you would be useful for your POTS / Dysautonomia alert dog? Leave a comment below and give us your opinion.
Mary is amazing!! I was having a horrible time with my hemiplegic migraines last year. I every other day I was down in excruciating pain or at the hospital unable to feel or move half my body. I didn’t even know that there was a migraine alert dog. I saw a video of hers one one of the thousands of google/yahoo/forum searches and found her website. I contacted her and she immediately accepted my attendance. We did the practice and sample training every day. We then flew to her home and took the course with her in person and even before my dog S?kuru knew how to tell me I was going to have a migraine she was crying and running in circles and jumping on me which was completely out of character for her. I text Mary from my camp and she told me to take my abort medication. Later that day unknown to me I was getting light sensitivity, followed by nausea. Mary noticed immediately and turned half the lights off in the classroom. If S?kuru had not told me and if I hadn’t not taken my preventative my migraine would have been another one so bad I would have to go to the ER again in an unknown state that I was there alone. Even a year later S?kuru still alerts me prior and has given me my life back. I started school and driving again and she has alerted me in both locations. She even alerted me while at the state fair! I am so so great full to Mary and how much she truely cares about you and works with you so you can have the miracle of a medical alert dog. I have friends and random people I meet who ask me about her and I give them her website and tell them she is the best. S?kuru is not a fan of listening all the time but that is breed. But she absolutely loves alerting and that is all because of Mary’s training. She will go from asleep by my feet to constantly nudging me until I take my preventative and than she is still watchful for the next hour. I love Mary and I love my dog.
Hi Mary! I have been training my Golden Doodle, Doc, to be my service dog since July of 2016! He is about to take the CGC and then the CGCA and he will hopefully be attending school with me next year during my 10th grade year! Doc started out training to alert to blood sugar and to respond to anxiety! My health began to decline and I’ve recently been having a lot of issues that my doctors, my mom, and I believe is POTS! Official diagnosis will be when I see the POTS specialist in a few weeks. But anyway, I’ve dealt with passing out, tachycardia, sever dizzyness and vertigo, and so much more! My quality of life lower tremendously very quickly! I passed out 15 times in 1 day! I decided that Doc could help me! I taught him how to retrieve medication, pick up things I drop, open doors(fridge or cabinet with meds), forward momentum pull, Deep pressure therapy, find and exit, and find a certain person I tell him to find! All of that helped a lot but I needed more! I have been doing scent training to teach him to alert to tachycardia… is this how you trained the POTS dogs you have trained? Doc has alerted a few times but I want him to be really reliable at alerting and tell me before I have a POTS episode! Thank you so much
I am on the road to being diagnosed with some form of dysautonomia, likely POTS, and I was wondering what dog breeds you recommend? Is it possible to adopt a dog and do basic training and then have it trained for medical alerts and tasks, or should the dog be trained from puppy age?
My recommendation is to go with one of our imprinted labradoodle puppies. You can view more about the Imprinted Puppy Litter using the following webpage http://servicedogacademy.com/wp/imprinted-medical-alert-dog-puppies/