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» Go to news mainMedia Highlight: Diabetes sniffing dogs studied by Dalhousie University researcher
Posted by Communications and Marketing on
July 10, 2015
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Media Highlights
From CBC:
A PhD student at Dalhousie University is trying to advance diabetes research by studying whether animals can detect changes in blood sugar levels.
With the help of a border collie named Nutella — a former rescue dog — Catherine Reeve hopes her study will eventually help to train diabetic service dogs.
"The dogs are fantastic and 100 per cent accurate," she says of her research.
Right now there are nine diabetic service dogs working in Canada, according to Guide Dogs Canada — a non-profit organization that provides service dogs free of charge.
The dogs are trained to detect when their owner's blood sugar level drops dangerously low. They will alert a loved one, activate an emergency button or fetch a diabetic kit.