The other night, I was asleep and started to have a low blood sugar (diabetic on insulin). Usually this wakes me up, but my doctor said that as time goes by, your body gets used to it and doesn’t have as many symptoms.
Anyway, my wife had fallen asleep downstairs so she wasn’t in the room with me. She told me that the dog started growling and barking which woke her up. She heard moaning and thought it was an animal outside then realized it was pouring rain. She got up and the dog dashed upstairs to the bedroom where she found me lying on the floor.
She called EMS who took my blood and it was 23 (if you don’t know that’s very very dangerously low)
I’d like to think he was a clever animal who was protecting his owner, but I think he was just a stupid dog who thought I was a racoon or something.
That’s great. There is quite a bit of evidence that animals have a sixth sense when it comes to detecting physical emergencies in their owners. Perhaps it has something to do with their more sensitive smell, hearing or eyesight that allows them to pick up on things we can’t. Either way, they can sense something we can’t.
That’s a good pup you’ve got - give him an extra treat for a job well done.
An extra treat my ass. You owe that dog treats for life.
If you were napping on the floor of your TV room, he’d have
ignored you, right? But you were in trouble, lying down in an
unlikey spot. His alarm went off which saved your life.
Congratulations. You have a very special animal. Cherish him.
Wow. I’m glad that you are okay after that close call! Hope that your doctor can come up with a plan that will keep this from happening to you anymore.
Dogs are such great companions. I felt a little more secure back when I had a dog around because I knew I could count on her to notice things that I wouldn’t.
That’s a great dog - you are lucky to have such an intelligent and loyal friend. Since you’re posting, I guess everything turned out all right. I’m glad you’re ok.
I’ve read about dogs who can detect seizures before the person is aware they are about to have one, enabling the person to lie down (or whatever is necessary) so they don’t fall and injure themselves.
I, on the other hand, have a cat that just went to sleep on the desk next to my keyboard and fell off. Now she’s giving me the evil eye, because of course it’s my fault.
I’ve read this too–that seizures are preceded by symptoms/changes in behavior that are so subtle that the epileptic him/herself is not aware of them, but that dogs can (be trained to) recognize. Odinoneeye, your dog is smart!
My grandmother had an Airedale who was very, very dim-witted. He really did seem to have some sort of learning disability-- to teach him the simplest of commands was an ordeal. (We even took him to a professional trainer who didn’t get much better results.) Luckily he was naturally a good-natured, placid dog.
When grandma moved, she had to find him a new home for him. An elderly man adopted the dog, and called my grandmother two months later with a very similar story to that in the OP. We were amazed.
The dog now whines and butts the man with his head when he knows the man’s blood sugar is getting low. He says he knows to take his medicine when the dogs stats doing that, even if he doesn’t feel bad yet.
