Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Introducing the meter into the training sequence

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.