Husky a diabetic's best friend

Vicki Parry takes Ada most places, including to the supermarket, but is still negotiating with her employer about taking the dog to work. Photo / Greg Bowker

When Vicki Parry's highly trained Siberian husky nudges forcefully into her leg, she knows it's time to do a diabetes test of her blood-sugar level.

When Vicki Parry's highly trained Siberian husky nudges forcefully into her leg, she knows it's time to do a diabetes test of her blood-sugar level.

Twenty-month-old Ada has been trained as a diabetes response dog and she usually detects that Mrs Parry's blood-sugar levels are getting dangerously low before she has realised it herself.

"She firmly nudges her nose against my leg. She has given me a bruise, she's very persistent. It's a trained response," said Mrs Parry, 29. "We have also trained her that if I don't respond at all, she's allowed to get up on me and paw me."

It is not known how dogs detect humans' blood-sugar levels, but trainers believe it is scent-based. Ada was trained using freezer-stored saliva swabs collected from Mrs Parry when her blood-sugar levels were high or low.

Mrs Parry, a technical writer, of Beach Haven on Auckland's North Shore, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, a disease of unknown cause, when she was 7.

Although her blood-sugar levels were well controlled before Ada arrived, they are even better now.

Long-term elevated blood-sugar levels can lead to diabetic complications such as blindness and kidney disease. Very high and very low levels can cause confusion and coma. Mrs Parry and her husband, Simon, an electrical goods salesman, got Ada for a pet when she was seven weeks old.

They took her to sessions with dog trainer Flip Calkoen and saw him teaching German shepherd Uni to be a diabetic response dog. Uni, featured in the Herald in 2012, did not reach the required standard and is now a family pet.

"He was too active," said Mr Calkoen, a board member of Kotuku Foundation Assistance Animals Aotearoa, a charity. "It would have been too difficult for a recipient to manage him.

"I was explaining about what we were doing and at the end of the class they said Vicki was diabetic; would it be possible for Ada to do that [Uni's training]. I said from what I had seen in her temperament, yes."

That was a year ago. Ada has now passed her good-manners test, specialist diabetes training and public-places test. Her training so far has focused mainly on low blood-sugar levels and is now switching to highs.

"Highs and lows are equally dangerous," said Mrs Parry.

Mrs Parry takes Ada most places she goes, including supermarket shopping, but is still talking with her employer about taking Ada to work.

Mr Calkoen said Siberian huskies were not typically trained as service dogs and as far as he knew Ada was the first of her breed to become a diabetic response dog.

The Parrys had paid some of Ada's training costs and he had covered the rest.

Helper dogs
Dogs are trained to help people who have conditions including:
• Diabetes
• Epilepsy
• Cerebral palsy
• Blindness
• Impaired hearing

The cost
$20,000 to $50,000 per dog