Bailey has had another solid week of alerting to highs and lows. When I look at the alert log form for the week it shows he has alerted to well over a dozen highs or lows. Some weeks can see this figure double. These alerts are spread out over the day and have included first thing in the morning (which is great) and when he walks in the door from school which tells me he's focused and keen to work.
He has given me some fantastic low alerts, alerting when Jason is 4.2 and 4.8 (his target range is between 5 and 10 but Jason will feel the hypo anywhere in the 4 range but then at other times he won't feel the hypo at all). This is the really wonderful aspect of his work because it allows me to give Jason some carbs to keep his blood sugars stable and he avoids the hypo altogether. One of these low alerts was given to me after dinnertime, so there is no way I would have picked it up as he's usually stable or on the higher side after eating. Another low alert was given as soon as Jason returned from school. He had bought a flavoured milk on the way home from school and that usually sends him up a bit so I probably wouldn't have picked up on it until he was having a hypo. Both were great pick ups by Bailey and proves how valuable his assistance is. The alert form also tells me that he caught all Jason's out of range BGL's for the past two weeks except maybe one or two through the night. And when I look at Jason's diabetes record book, it shows really great BGL's for the last couple of weeks in particular.
Before bedtime I like Jason's BGL's to be sitting around 10 or slightly above or he can drop too much throughout the night and wake low. I will get a lot of high alerting from Bailey before bedtime because of this as he will alert to anything over 8 as high. So I need to acknowledge and reward the high alert as usual and if he still won't settle, I have been known to pretend to give Jason a correction of insulin because sometimes he will keep alerting me until he sees me do this. After all, it's been about a year now that he's been keenly observing what actions I take after he alerts me to a high or low blood sugar. If he doesn't see me give Jason juice or honey for a hypo or insulin for the high, he will think that I haven't taken notice of his alert.
Dogs are keen observers and are constantly assessing us through our physical expressions. They take in the details of our facial expressions, whether our body is tense or relaxed, how we move...just to name a few. So it makes perfect sense that he knows what my next step should be...
He has given me some fantastic low alerts, alerting when Jason is 4.2 and 4.8 (his target range is between 5 and 10 but Jason will feel the hypo anywhere in the 4 range but then at other times he won't feel the hypo at all). This is the really wonderful aspect of his work because it allows me to give Jason some carbs to keep his blood sugars stable and he avoids the hypo altogether. One of these low alerts was given to me after dinnertime, so there is no way I would have picked it up as he's usually stable or on the higher side after eating. Another low alert was given as soon as Jason returned from school. He had bought a flavoured milk on the way home from school and that usually sends him up a bit so I probably wouldn't have picked up on it until he was having a hypo. Both were great pick ups by Bailey and proves how valuable his assistance is. The alert form also tells me that he caught all Jason's out of range BGL's for the past two weeks except maybe one or two through the night. And when I look at Jason's diabetes record book, it shows really great BGL's for the last couple of weeks in particular.
Before bedtime I like Jason's BGL's to be sitting around 10 or slightly above or he can drop too much throughout the night and wake low. I will get a lot of high alerting from Bailey before bedtime because of this as he will alert to anything over 8 as high. So I need to acknowledge and reward the high alert as usual and if he still won't settle, I have been known to pretend to give Jason a correction of insulin because sometimes he will keep alerting me until he sees me do this. After all, it's been about a year now that he's been keenly observing what actions I take after he alerts me to a high or low blood sugar. If he doesn't see me give Jason juice or honey for a hypo or insulin for the high, he will think that I haven't taken notice of his alert.
Dogs are keen observers and are constantly assessing us through our physical expressions. They take in the details of our facial expressions, whether our body is tense or relaxed, how we move...just to name a few. So it makes perfect sense that he knows what my next step should be...