Respitory therapy dogs

[anonymous]

I was talking to a group of people at my office the other day, and somehow the topic of respiratory therapy dogs came up. I've never heard of this, but everyone else in the conversation had, so I'm wondering if I missed something or if this is just some sort of urban legend. What I gathered from the conversation is that the dogs are trained to detect when a drop in peak flow and other respiratory type factors occurs and indicate this to the patient. I know that I typically don't notice that my lung function is dropping until it has dropped substantially, so this made sense to me, but I just wasn't sure. How are the dogs trained? You would have to know that someone had low peak flow to train them of that condition?

Based on the developments with the psychological service dogs, I could definitely see the general benefit of a service dog to a cfer, but I'm really curious as to whether there are dogs who can really help to identify declines in lung function and if so, how and where they are trained.

 

[dyza]

never heard of that, but they do train dogs to do the most amazing things, I think they have some kind of 6th sense, our dog knows when the wife is on the way home from work ( unless it can tell the time).

 

[JazzysMom]

I dont know if all dogs could do this, but our lab mix knows when I am struggling to breath. I dont know if that is exactly the same as what these therapy dogs would sense, but she gets to be a real pain when she wont leave my side LOL!

 

[anonymous]

I don't see why not! There are trained dogs the can tell when diabetics are about to have a sugar issue!!
Katy

 

[Scarlett81]

I have never heard of that, but I wouldnt put it past them. At my next dog show I'm going to ask the AKC reps if they know anyhing about it.
They have trained dogs to detect cancer in patients, I know that. Dogs rock!

 

[Mockingbird]

I have heard of dogs that can predict severe and sudden drops in repiratory function, like in an asthma attack. (here's a good story about it I just found <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.greenapple.com/~jorp/amzanim/an-story11.htm">http://www.greenapple.com/~jorp/amzanim/an-story11.htm</a> I am not sure if that is what your co-workers were talking about or not.

I'm not sure how practical it would be for a CFer to get a service dog, since we generally don't have severe and sudden attacks like that.

 

[debs2girls]

I have heard of dogs doing this sort of thing before. That story was amazing and I had goose bumps on my arms.
There is a lady here in town that has a service dog that is truly amazing and he has saved her many times.

 

[anonymous]

That is amazing. For some reason, I pictured dogs doing actual chest PT's. <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0">

 

[Landy]

That story was amazing.
This probably isn't even worth mentioning but when I have coughing fits, one of our labradoodles stops what he's doing & watches me intently until he knows I'm OK. I've often wondered what he would do if I seemed not able to catch my breath.

 

[Emily65Roses]

Don't worry, anon, I wondered for a sec how they trained dogs to smack people. LOL... And Lynda, my golden retriever did similar things when she was alive. If I went to hospital (for as little as 3 days), and came home, she would NOT let me out of her sight. Smart animals!