SCHOOL AGREES TO ALLOW SERVICE DOG TO ACCOMPANY EPILEPTIC 12-YEAR-OLD

Suffering from a rare and severe form of epilepsy, 12-year-old Andrew Stevens can experience up to 20 seizures a day, any one of them potentially fatal. But thanks to a German shepherd service dog named Alaya, Andrew doesn‘t have to be under his parents’ watchful eye at all times. He can now go out and play, walk his dog down the street and use the bathroom unaided.

But Andrew’s freedom ended at his Virginia schoolhouse doors as the Fairfax County Public School system barred him from bringing Alaya to school with him. “I think what they’ve done has really been an injustice to my son,” Nancy Stevens, Andrew’s mother, told Matt Lauer on NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday. “A service dog is trained very well. If Andrew sits, the dog is going to sit. If Andrew gets up, the dog is going to get up. A service dog will not bite anybody at all,” she said, addressing the school’s safety concerns.

But after drawing national attention and public outcry from across the country, Change.org reported Tuesday evening that its campaign on Andrew‘s behalf had successfully forced Andrew’s school district to alter their stance.  “It’s time to celebrate a victory for disability rights, epilepsy awareness and a boy and his dog!” the site said, announcing its members had flooded Andrew’s school administrators with 371 emails in protest of the ban. See Video:

Today, Ft. Belvoir Elementary officials told Andrew’s parents that Andrew could bring Alaya to school with him as early as next week. In the beginning, Angelo and Nancy will accompany Andrew to school, riding the bus with him and staying with him and Alaya during the day. As teachers and students adapt and learn how to interact with Alaya, Andrew’s parents will gradually transition away and Andrew and Alaya will go to school together — as originally planned.

Not only that — the school is now looking at updating their policy on disability access, Angelo Stevens told Change.org today. This all comes thanks to the grueling work done by Andrew’s parents to advocate for their 12-year-old son and his service dog.

The Stevens family created a foundation in Andrew’s name, first to raise money for Alaya, and now to raise money for service dogs for other needy children. That foundation, and the TODAY show coverage, has meant that he‘s been contacted by other parents around the country who are trying to get their childrens’ service dogs admitted in schools.

Source:  the Blaze & Cross-posted at Just One More Pet, True Health Is True Wealth and Ask Marion

Dogs Being Trained to Sniff Out Diabetes

A canine's hyper-sensitive nose can detect tiny changes in blood sugar

AYLESBURY, England - Dogs are being trained in Britain as potential life-savers to warn diabetic owners when their blood sugar levels fall to dangerously low levels.

Man's best friend already has been shown capable of sniffing out certain cancer cells, and dogs have long been put to work in the hunt for illegal drugs and explosives.

Their new front-line role in diabetes care follows recent evidence suggesting a dog's hyper-sensitive nose can detect tiny changes that occur when a person is about to have a hypoglycemic attack.

A survey last December by researchers at Queen's University Belfast found 65 percent of 212 people with insulin-dependent diabetes reported that when they had a hypoglycemic episode their pets had reacted by whining, barking, licking or some other display.

At the Cancer and Bio-Detection Dogs research center in Aylesbury, southern England, animal trainers are putting that finding into practice and honing dogs' innate skills.

The charity has 17 rescue dogs at various stages of training that will be paired up with diabetic owners, many of them children.

"Dogs have been trained to detect certain odors down to parts per trillion, so we are talking tiny, tiny amounts. Their world is really very different to ours," Chief Executive Claire Guest told Reuters TV.

The center was started five years ago by orthopedic surgeon Dr John Hunt, who wanted to investigate curious anecdotes about dogs pestering their owners repeatedly on parts of their body that were later found to be cancerous.

At around the same time, the first hard evidence was being gathered by researchers down the road at Amersham Hospital that dogs could identify bladder cancer from chemicals in urine.

The move into diabetes followed the case of Paul Jackson, who told Guest and her team about his dog Tinker who warns him when his sugar levels get too low and he is in danger of collapsing.

"It's generally licking my face, panting beside me. It depends how far I have gone before he realizes," Jackson said.

Tinker has now been trained by the Aylesbury center and is a fully qualified Diabetic Hypo-Alert dog, complete with red jacket to announce himself as a working assistance animal.

Source: Just One More Pet

Posted: True Health Is True Wealth

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