This is the incredible moment a trained diabetes service dog saved a young girl’s life by detecting a dangerously high blood sugar spike even as she slept.
The Virginia family pet is being hailed as a hero for drawing attention to the medical emergency.
Mother-of-three Shannon Boggs and her husband were watching TV at home in November when their dog, Spy, alerted them.
The pet led them to a bedroom where their 9-year-old daughter Raelynn, who has Type 1 diabetes, was sleeping, according to a video Boggs shared on Instagram.
At a blood sugar meeting, they were told her levels were dangerously high, at 338 mg/dl.
Mother-of-three Shannon Boggs and her husband were watching TV at home in November when their dog, Spy, alerted them. The pet led them to a bedroom where their nine-year-old daughter Raelynn, who has Type 1 diabetes, was sleeping, according to a video Boggs shared on Instagram.
A target glucose range for a person with diabetes at bedtime is between 90 and 150 mg/dL, according to the Joslin Diabetes Center at Beth Israel Lahey Health in Boston.
‘The nose ALWAYS knows! Even when he sleeps,” Boggs wrote under the video shared to Instagram. “This dog is such a blessing to our family! We really couldn’t be more grateful.”
Boggs wrote on Instagram that Raelynn wears a continuous glucose monitor, but on this occasion the new monitor she had set up was still calibrating, so her blood sugar levels went unchecked.
Boggs also said her daughter, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes last year, had the flu at the time.
According to the Joslin Diabetes Center, an illness such as the flu is one factor that can cause high blood sugar.
At a blood sugar meeting, they were told her levels were dangerously high, at 338 mg/dl
According to the center, high blood glucose or hyperglycemia occurs when levels reach 160 mg/dL or higher.
Diabetic alert dogs are trained to detect the odor that hypoglycemia produces in a person due to chemical changes in their body.
They are also trained to alert the person with diabetes, and some can even pick up juice or glucose tablets, fetch an emergency phone or get help from another resident in a property, according to CanDoCanines.org, an organization that matches specially trained dogs. with people with disabilities.
