I LOVE DOGS ! ! ! ! ! !

Anytime I hear of dogs being the best pet ever, I just have to shout it from the roof tops... or from our blog.

Charles found this article and told me about it.  It is titled "Canines Improve the Lives of Diabetics: Talented dogs trained to recognize low blood sugar can help diabetics live a more fulfilling and healthy life."  It is all about these dogs that are trained to detect the low blood sugar levels of people with Type I Diabetes.  They said that the dogs can detect it quicker than some machines.  The place they are trained is called Dogs4Diabetics  I think the dogs are so special and amazing.

Here are two stories from the article:

"Kathy was over at a friend's house, and a car pulled up to the curb.  A woman came out with a black Labrador.  Kathy, 'a sucker for black labs,' started to pet the dog, but instead of wagging its tail happily, the dog just stared at her intensely.  It made a strange motion, jumping into the air and back down, and then kept staring.
"'Are you diabetic?' the dog's owner asked.  Kathy said she was and the woman told her that her blood sugar was dropping.  'My dog is trained to detect dropping blood sugar.'  Although skeptical, Kathy went inside and tested her blood sugar.  And sure enough, it was at about 40 mg/dl (Mornal is in the 8- to 100 mg/dl range.)"

"On a recent airplane ride, Odetta [the dog Kathy got for herself] grabbed with her mouth the special black cloth strap (called a 'bringsel') that hangs from around her neck, and nudged Kathy - her signal that something was off with Kathy's blood sugar.  Kathy's blood sugar was fine, but Odetta wouldn't give up.  She started to alert with more urgency, even standing up and walking in the plane aisle to get Kathy's attention.  Something was wrong, so Kathy asked the man sitting next to her if he was a diabetic, and sure enough, he was - and his blood sugar was dropping.

If I was a diabetic I would love to have a dog like this, too bad I'm not.  I guess I'll just have to get a dog anyways.