Autism Assistance Dogs

Autism Assistance Dogs are trained for children and families living with autism. The rise in autism rates is staggering. The evolution of programs geared toward successfully integrating children with autism into routine daily activities includes Autism Assistance Dogs.

Autism Assistance Dogs are trained to enhance the safety of children with autism by acting as an anchor and preventing the child from bolting into unsafe environments such as traffic, bodies of water, etc. Autism Assistance Dogs can also have a calming effect on the child and may improve the child's willingness and ability to communicate and bond.

Training:

• Training generally takes four to six months.

Placement:

• When ready for placement with an approved applicant, the trainer travels to the client's home for one-on-one training with the client and all family members.
• Placement training is generally three to five days in length.

Follow up:

• Dogs for the Deaf provides follow up training for the life of the team. Follow up training includes guidance and suggestions consisting of verbal contact, written contact, and in home visits.

What does it cost to get an Autism Assistance Dog?

With the exception of a $50.00 application fee, Dogs for the Deaf places Autism Assistance Dogs free of charge to qualified applicants. When an applicant has been approved to receive an Autism Assistance Dog and is ready to be placed on the waiting list, we require a $500.00 Good Faith deposit, which is returned after the person and the Autism Assistance Dog have been together for one year. Once the dog is placed with a person, the client is financially responsible for the on-going care of the dog.

If you would like additional information or an application packet, please contact Dogs for the Deaf, Inc.

Cross-Posted at Just One More Pet

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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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