Volunteers for Medical Detection Dogs

jc24965 · #1 19-12-11, 10:14 AM

Does anyone on this forum volunteer their services for this organisation, or know of anyone that does?
I am fascinated by dogs that 'work' and would like to somehow get involved with an organisation like this. My brother was recently diagnosed with bladder cancer and my grandmother had diabetes (and she could never tell when her blood sugar was low and we often saw her go hypo and had to rush and get her glucose for her).
I think dogs that are trained to detect cancer and other illnesses are just simply amazing.

Raven · #2 19-12-11, 10:56 AM

It's amazing what dogs can do, I'm also fascinated how dogs detect medical conditions.
Petra's brother is a Guide and Assitance dog working alongside a wheelchair for his partially sighted owner, which I think is brilliant and Petra's older sister is a brood bitch for the Irish guide dogs. It's lovely to see dogs working in gentle caring capacities as well as the usual disciplines :-)
It would be interesting to know how you can get involved with this type of organisation.

Raven · #3 19-12-11, 10:57 AM

It's amazing what dogs can do, I'm also fascinated how dogs detect medical conditions.
Petra's brother is a Guide and Assitance dog working alongside a wheelchair for his partially sighted owner, which I think is brilliant and Petra's older sister is a brood bitch for the Irish guide dogs. It's lovely to see dogs working in gentle caring capacities as well as the usual disciplines :-)
It would be interesting to know how you can get involved with this type of organisation.

Maddie · #4 19-12-11, 10:57 AM

I've read about dogs who naturally are able to detect illnesses, and don't require formal training as such.

Have you read the thread by j&j about their two dogs? its fascinating. They deserve all the praise they can get.

Im very interested from a personal point of view, the OH has diabetes, for a time (before his regime was changed) he was experiencing a lot of hypos. One particularly bad one, i found him on the sofa, on his way to being very low. Immediately after that, if any of us fell alseep on the sofa, a big wet nose would be thrust in your face! I don't think she was able to detect anything, but she certainly had remembered the incident.

Raven · #5 19-12-11, 10:59 AM

Sorry don't know why that posted twice !

J&J · #6 19-12-11, 12:46 PM

I would take a look at here Assistance Dogs (UK): A voluntary coalition of assistance dog organisations

They list the main assistant dogs organisations in the uk

There are some smaller charities that work in local areas,

I would speak to your local vets, speak to your dog warden etc as well as a local google search..

Hope this helps...

I'm extremely lucky with Ellie and Jones who took it upon themselves to do hypo warning duties..

Must admit though, sometimes Ellie can either use her talent for devious intentions or be a bit of a nag

She has been know to wake Les up on a red herring so she can sneak into bed with me

Oh and last night I didn't do my blood glucose test before going to bed... And no she wasn't going to allow me to go to sleep until I had done it, had her front paws on the bed wet nose in the face licking and licking, until I gave up and picked my meter up from the bedside draws to do a test at which point she went and settled down in her patch for the night...

We did think about training Ellie up to get her Official Assistance dog Licence but she's got a couple of minor glitches and also it wouldn't be fair on Jones when he couldn't come with us.. And sadly Jones doesn't have the confidence around people or strange places scars from his previous life before coming to us..