With that, we can teach the dogs to react to that smell by offering a specific behavior. The smell can be released just a few minutes before, to up over an hour before the seizure.Īt this point, we don’t know what smell is produced before and during a seizure, only that there is a smell that dogs can detect. How soon, will depend on each individual person. Their results also proved that the smell is released before a seizure happens ( Maa & al. Since then, a second study came out early 2021, from Florida International University and Canine Assistance, that confirmed our findings. Not only were the dogs able to find the right sample, but their level of accuracy (sensitivity and specificity) was very high. The samples collected were from different people, with different types of seizures. During the test, the dogs had to find a seizure sample amongst other samples from the same patient, either right after physical exercise or when they were just resting. For this study, 5 dogs were trained to find samples collected from patients having a seizure. We were able to prove, without a doubt, that dogs do indeed recognize a scent that epileptic patients release when they have a seizure. In 2019, we decided to share our findings and teamed up with a research group from the University of Rennes (in France). At Medical Mutts, we have trained seizure alert dogs using scent since we started in 2013 and have taught other service dog groups both in the US and abroad, how to do so. Those observations led me to start collecting samples from people right after they had a seizure and training the dogs to alert to that smell. Could there be a similar smell released by a person whether their glucose levels get out of range or whether they’re about to have a seizure? Could the dogs be picking up on a particular scent before the seizure? This only happened after the dogs had been trained to recognize samples from diabetic patients. In one instance they knew the person, but a few other times, the dogs had never met the person. Some speculated that subtle movements might be noticed by the dog.Īs I was training Diabetes Alert Dogs in a women’s prison, I got reports that a few dogs had suddenly stopped everything they were doing to focus intensely on a person. With so many individual variations, it seemed quite impossible that there would be a single sign that dogs could pick up leading up to a seizure. The next step is that we’ll put our coat on and leave. That’s why they can get anxious as soon as we put our shoes on or grab our keys. Dogs are after all extremely good at picking up certain patterns or sequences leading up to certain events. Those dogs will become seizure alert dogs. With time and repetition of the event, some seizure response dogs develop the ability on their own to pick up on cues that their person is about to have a seizure and start showing changes in their behavior. ![]() As the person recovers, the dog can get something to drink, get medication, get a phone, and can help the person get up from the floor. Dogs can be taught that when their person drops on the floor, they need to get help, press a button connected to 911 and/or lie next to the person. Many service dog organizations have been training seizure response dogs, in other words, dogs that could perform certain tasks meant to help a person during and immediately after a seizure. This sudden change of behavior from their dog would let the person know that a seizure was coming, and they could put themselves in a safe spot. There have been many reports of dogs that would suddenly start staring intensely at their human, or pacing, or whining, or licking their human excessively, etc. Historically, some dogs have alerted to seizures on their own.
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