In the past 5-10 years, the range of conditions that dogs can help with has greatly increased, especially with conditions that involve scent. From diabetes to seizure alert, and even psychiatric disorders, dogs are trained to help manage or prevent challenging and sometimes life-threatening episodes. What is the reliability as well as the limits of medical alert service dogs? What type of dogs work best? Who can most benefit from such specialized dogs? I’ll also discuss some of the latest findings in the field of seizure alert dogs. Epilepsy is a condition that can greatly limit a person’s ability to live a full and independent life. This complicated disorder presents unique challenges from a trainers' perspective. I’ll describe how medical alert service dogs are trained at Medical Mutts Service Dogs, from sample collection to live alerts. Outline Dogs in the medical field – what conditions do they help with today The benefits of medical alert service dogs Who can such dogs help – the ideal candidate What do we know about the smell? A step-by-step process: The indication behavior Discrimination Pairing the scent with the alert - Pros and cons of different types of alerting behaviors Developing live alerts Reliability of medical alert dogs: example of seizure alert dog study What can affect odor perception Night alerts Additional behaviors trained to help

Sponsor:IAABC Foundation
Speaker(s):Jennifer Cattet

Contact:
 Email: courses@iaabcfoundation.org
 Web: https://iaabcfoundation.org/2023-animal-behavior-conference/