Do you:
- Have a medical condition with little or no warning signs or awareness of an impending episode?
- Frequently have episodes that result in collapse, emergency ambulance call outs and hospitalisation, or that often result in injury?
- Feel that your quality of life is significantly affected by your medical condition?
- Remain compliant with your management strategies?
- Still face challenges despite receiving all the assistance your health care team can offer?
If you can answer YES to the above then maybe a Medical Alert Assistance Dog could help you.
Please do be aware that having a Medical Alert Assistance Dog is a big commitment and involves a lot of input, training and time given from the client and their family. This is in the form of frequent visits and training at the centre, detailed record keeping of all medical episodes, alert behaviour from the dog and also regular home visits and communication with the training team. There is also a need for the client to commit to having the dog with them at every possible opportunity to build the bond between them and to give the dog the opportunity to alert to any medical episodes. Please do consider this carefully before applying.
Child Applicants
We are training Medical Alert Assistance Dogs for children. Please note that the process is more challenging for a child due to the fact that children tend to be ‘on the move’ more than an adult. From the knowledge we have gained so far, partnerships tend to be more successful the younger the age of the child, bearing in mind that our minimum age limit is 5 years old. Success is more likely from 5 years upwards as this tends to be the age that a strong bond can really be achieved, leading to consistent alerting.
Parents of a child applicant need to consider that these fall into ‘team partnerships’ i.e. that an adult needs to take overall responsibility for the dog and that when matching the child to a dog we will of course be bearing in mind the relationship between the dog and the whole family unit. Therefore, please note that an adult would need to be in a position to care for the dog whilst the child is at school, i.e. not out of the house at work all day, or needing to leave the dog alone for long periods of time.
Please be aware that a responsible adult must accompany a child with a Medical Alert Assistance Dog up until the age of 14 years. Between the ages of 14-16 a child going out with the dog unaccompanied by an adult will be discussed on a case by case basis.
Please also be aware that a dog cannot be left alone for more than 3-4 hours a day.
You may be interested in the potential of the dog accompanying the child applicant to school. We have had dogs that accompany their child client into school However, this is very dependent on the individual situation, for example the need (i.e. your child is suffering from frequent dangerous hypos at school and the teachers are struggling to cope) and the support of the school and agreement to take responsibility for the dog, toileting a dog etc. It also does of course take a lot of additional support from us in the way of visits and training with the school and will depend on the suitability of the individual dog to be happy to attend that kind of environment.and is something we would individually consider once a dog was settled and consistently alerting at home first and with careful discussion with the school.
If night-time difficulties are the main concern, you may need to prioritise this over the potential for the dog to attend school. Getting a dog to consistently alert at night can be more difficult than the day-time alerting. Therefore, if you hope the dog will alert at night, we would not advise that the dog accompanies the child to school.
The last point to consider before applying is whether it is the right time of their life for the child to commence an assistance dog partnership. It is a big commitment which involves a lot of input, training and time given from the client in the form of training at the centre, detailed record keeping of blood glucose readings, any alert behaviour and also home and centre visits. There is also a need for the client to commit to having the dog with them at every possible opportunity to build the bond between them and to give the dog the chance to alert to any high or low blood sugars, something that becomes much more relevant and harder to achieve with child partnerships simply because of the big part of the day they may not together when the child is at school.
We have also found that teenage children are not always that keen to input this level of commitment or time with the dog due to being at a stage in their life where they are desiring more independence and time away from other family members. They may be going through big life changes such as going to secondary school or college. In reality a teenager may not want to have an assistance dog accompany them when going out with friends and so forth. This is a period in a child/teenager’s life when there is lots of transition/change and when they may be making decisions about work or university. It is crucial that the child is fully committed to a Medical Alert Assistance Dog partnership for the lifetime of the dog.
Application process what next?
If you answer ‘Yes’ to the statements above and would like to register your interest in applying for a Medical Alert Assistance Dog, please complete the form here.