I decided that Senator is ready to start retrieving the meter for me after he alerts. Ideally, he will alert me and then get the meter from a place that I now keep it where he can reach it. I will test to confirm that he is right and then get the treats out. I had been working with him on the retrieving part alone and he has been doing very well. I had an old meter that I would put on a certain small table in the living room. I would say "get the meter" and he would get it and bring it to me. I am doing the same thing with a decoy "snack" that I will incorporate into the sequence later.
I asked how others do this on a facebook page that I had found called Diabetes Alert Dog Talk. I got some pointers and decided to try it yesterday.
I had a low after a walk and Senator alerted me. I told him to go get the meter. He looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about. I tried to get him to do it a few times, but then have up and got it myself because I was uncomfortably low.
I tried the same thing again later that afternoon with the same result. I started thinking about what is different between these situations. It is a different meter. The first one had the meter in it, but no test strip container or lancets, so I suppose it was smaller. I didn't have the treat bag on me as I had in the other times while I was in training mode.
I tried it again in training mode and he did just fine. I'll do it a few more times with the treat bag and then try to wean it away. I wouldn't have thought it would make such a big difference. The little stinker.
Cruise is off for his final training now. We miss him very much, but I think Senator's training will go more smoothly. Cruise was very aware of everything that I did and would tell Senator when to alert. He would also beat Senator to the meter every time. So this is a nice opportunity to move ahead with Senator now.
