As a Cat Person, I have never been privvy to animals with special skills. Penny the Feline can recognise the words 'treat', 'food' and, well, 'Penny', but that's about it. She was useless at learning to use the human toilet (Litter Kwitter is bullshit, people, it is bullshit) and has still not quite comprehended that we do not enjoy gifts of lizards, mice and rats.
Furthermore, my late rabbits Spunky, Pretzel and Hot Cross Bun Bun didn't even recognise their own names. If they had special skills we were unaware of them (and they most certainly didn't extend to avoiding foxes). So I was incredibly impressed by the powers of dogs to assist humans with disabilities.
Not only can Diabetic Alert Dogs recognise blood sugar changes, but Seizure Alert Dogs can, astonishingly, predict seizures in their epileptic owners up to 20 minutes ahead of time. And this got me thinking. What other issues could dogs be trained to recognise? Could I have my own Alert Dog to help me in my life?
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"You have PMS, Human" |
- A Mood Alert Dog, who would predict a rapid plummet in mood up to 15 minutes before it occured, then alert my loved ones with special barks so that they can get away from me quickly before becoming a casualty.
- A Bad Man Alert Dog, who would assess potential suitors via their pheromones and warn me not to get emotionally involved.
- A Hormone Alert Dog, good for sniffing out PMS, ovulation, early pregnancy, oncoming periods and menopause. No more urine tests or doctors visits required!
- A Conflict Alert Dog, especially for the family, who would recognise upcoming tensions and arguments and separate warring parties before the trouble began.
- A Binge Alert Dog, who would bark and nip and attack when I overeat/ drink too much/ attempt to drunk text/ basically do anything wrong at all.
Watch Grace's story here. Jackie the dog first appears at about 3:15. Amazing.
Kerri, you don't need an Alert Dog or even a seeing eye dog, who will warn you it's time for a trip to the optometrist. No, you need a seeing ALL dog, so that you can be warned of ANY emergency coming up, such as running out of wine flavoured Nutella. What ? You didn't know about that ?
ReplyDeleteThese dogs are amazing. My friend Jess has a guide dog and they cost $20,000 to train. I could use all those trained dogs too. Plus none to find my phone and car keys which I'm always misplacing.
ReplyDeleteA 'need a drink' dog would be great, although my in-house system is pretty effective.
ReplyDeleteI love this. I would definitely love a binge alert dog, it could guard the fridge and would be pretty much sorted. I'm all about the hormone alert dog and I wouldn't say no to a thyroid alert dog either, just so that could read my T levels as niftily as Jackie knows blood sugars. This warms the cockles of my heart, it really does!
ReplyDeleteHi Kerri - I've shared about my wonder dog (who compared with these is not THAT amazing, but we love her anyway) but according to this Ted talk apparently a dog can 'smell the past, the future and even things that can’t be seen at all' (so maybe you'll be able to find all you are looking wrapped up in the one??) http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-do-dogs-see-with-their-noses-alexandra-horowitz
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