Dog Saves Life of a Diabetic

Wed, 18 Jan 2012
Chuck Everett woke up with is his 6-year-old Shih Tzu, Carly, yelping and acting unduly oddly on January 6. It turns out, Everett needed help not Carly.

The 72-year-old diabetic’s blood sugar level was dangerously low. If he had not woken up to discover it, who knows what could have happened.

He could have gone into a diabetic shock. If he had not then been found quickly, he may not have come out of it. It could have been very serious.

On January 6, two days after being diagnosed with Stage 1 throat cancer, Everett returned home feeling ill. He administered a shot for high blood sugar and fell asleep around 7:30 p.m.

About two hours later, he woke up to Carly barking, licking his face and clawing his bed, which was not usual behaviour as she is a cuddler, a yelper or licker.

His wife entered the room wondering what the commotion was about.

Once Carly has settled down, Everett considered it a good idea to check his blood sugar level and found it to be 39, the lowest it had been, well below the healthy range of 85 to 105.

Everett then increased it to a healthy level by taking glucose, drinking milk and eating honey.

Dogs Assisting Diabetics, a not-for-profit group that partners dogs with diabetic, stated that it is not uncommon for dogs to detect low blood sugar levels . Upon a diabetic's blood sugar reaching dangerous lows, dogs can smell the chemical change the body undergoes.

There are some groups that train dogs to pick up these changes; Carly had not undergone any such special training.

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