A special dog to assist Australians with Diabetes

Since the 1980s Lions has provided over 600 assistance dogs to deaf or hearing-impaired Australians and now they are on a mission to do the same for those with Diabetes.  

Australian Lions Hearing Dogs has recently launched a new medical assistance dog program. The alert dogs will be trained to alert to low blood sugar levels in asymptomatic Type 1 Diabetics.  

The first puppy to be trained in the program has been welcomed into its foster home and is currently completing his training.  The working English Springer Spaniel, named Cody, is sponsored by parent Vicki who already has a hearing dog, as does her son.   

Vicki says she looks forward to supporting Cody through the training and seeing the program introduced in coming years.  

“I know first-hand how much an assistant dog can change someone’s life. Many hearing-impaired people like my son and I, can’t hear important sounds such as the knock at the door, a telephone or, most seriously, a smoke alarm. Our assistant dogs provide us with confidence and security. The Diabetes medical alert dogs will do the same for those living with low blood sugar levels. It’s a pleasure to be the foster home for the first Lions Diabetes medical alert dog,” says Vicki.    

There is currently a very high demand for Australian Lions Hearing dogs with an increasing number of Australians suffering from some form of hearing loss. Unfortunately, this number is on the rise, as is the number of Australians living with Diabetes.  

Across the country, 1.3 million people have been diagnosed with Diabetes and 283 people are diagnosed every day. Diabetes has been named one of the Lions’ 5 key focus areas and we are excited to be introducing this new program as part of this commitment.