WHAT IS A TMAU SERVICE DOG ALERT

DRAY IS ALERTING FOR A SPECIFIC SCENT,
so that whenever he detects it, he will alert without a command.

Liz Norris, Master Instructor and Founder of Pawsibilities Unleashed*, is demonstrating how well Dray's training is coming along in alerting for whatever specific scent he is asked to find. Dray is trained to find any scent he is given to smell, whether it is TMA, or any other odor a sufferer may have, as long as he is then asked to "find it". Eventually as the training progresses, he will automatically alert to the scent without a command.

What we're doing is we’re taking a ‘diabetic high’, which is a blood sugar high. This is saliva, we have put saliva on cotton balls, frozen them and thawed them back out so we can use them to fake it. This little boy is not diabetic, but we’re going to use the scent on him, Dray is going to go over and show us if the child is high or low. He’s going to indicate that from the scent; and the scent is hidden in the little boy’s shoe.

'Dray, find the high, where's the high, Dray, show me, where’s the high. Yes, Searching, good boy, good boy – searching, where's the high. Yes, oh, good boy, Dray. That was a good 'find a high'.

OK now, we’re going to try again and you ask him, 'Am I high?', [Liz tells the boy raising the his hand.] Show him, 'is he high?' [she says to Dray,] 'Good boy, yes.' 'show him again.' [Dray raises his paw indicating that this is the high diabetic scent. The low diabetic scent is different, and the dog is trained to nudge with his head to indicate a low diabetic scent.]

There you go, so what he did is he showed the little boy , and if this were my son, and my son were ignoring him because children don’t [always listen to the dog]; then he would come to me and I would ask him, 'Dray, what is he, is he high?' And Dray would say, 'Yes, mommy, he’s high.' So the dog would come back and tell the parent that the child is high.

Awesome, Yay!!!

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Liz is a former U.S. Air Force K-9 unit trainer, including search & rescue (SAR), cadaver detection, drug detection, and K-9 obedience. She has also trained Malamutes as sled dogs, shown on the AKC circuit, been an AKC judge, and has volunteered with her own dogs in multiple SAR missions...

Liz Norris is the founder of Pawsibilities Unleashed. She is an official tester for the Therapy Dog certifications and Canine Good Citizen (CGC) tests and Service Dog Public Access Test.
http://puptky.giving.officelive.com/aboutus.aspx>

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MeBO Research