Since this is a dog blog, a couple of times a month our boy Bo (woof!) thought it would be nice to get the news through a dog’s eyes.

Bo invites everyone to read a chapter from his upcoming book BAD TO THE BONE at Bo Knows Online. It’s a funny memoir about the crazy adventures we have shared together over the last 14 plus years, told through Bo’s eyes.

Okay Bo, take it from here…..

Today’s story: not weird, not crazy just another reason to love us four legged, fuzzy creatures.

That’s right, not only are we adorable, non-judgmental and eager to please, but now we’re also getting into the human healthcare game.

Turns out our noses are life savers. No, not the green, red or yellow variety but the soul saving kind. A sniff here and a sniff there and we can tell whether a diabetic’s blood sugar falls to a dangerous level.

Of course it is at this point the true test of being man’s best friend comes into play. Ask yourself, are you going to give up that Butterfinger bar in your fur suit to save that human?

While you decide, Reuters has the details on the research.

AYLESBURY, England (Reuters) - Dogs are being trained in Britain as potential life-savers to warn diabetic owners when their blood sugar levels fall to dangerously low levels.

Man’s best friend already has been shown capable of sniffing out certain cancer cells, and dogs have long been put to work in the hunt for illegal drugs and explosives.

Their new front-line role in diabetes care follows recent evidence suggesting a dog’s hyper-sensitive nose can detect tiny changes that occur when a person is about to have a hypoglycemic attack.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week the guest tipster on The Daily Dog Tip was CJ Betancourt, founder of The Foundation for Service Dog Support. The FSDS s a non-profit organization based in Arizona. They are a support and resource center for those with service dogs, and those who seek information and training on service dog issues.

The organization runs several programs, but the one I want to focus on is the Puppy Raising Program. The reason being, this program works with high school students. Over the last few months I’ve posted some very disturbing stories dealing with children and animal cruelty, this program highlights the good qualities in today’s teens. It shows what a difference a high school student can make in the community, now and in the future.

The program allows students to earn HS credits, while learning puppy raising, canine obedience and canine safety programming. At the end of three semesters, the teams must successfully pass the FSDS Certification test, and the dogs will then be matched with individuals in the community with disabilities who require service dogs.

One of the teens chosen to participate is Brittney Shields.  I got the opportunity to interview Brittney about her experience being in the program.

My name is Brittney Shields, and I was chosen to be a handler/trainer in this program. There are twelve handlers and twelve puppies in the first group. Each of us had to go through an application and interview process before we were accepted into the program. I first heard about it from an article on the school district’s website.

After reading the article, I was instantly interested in the program for two reasons. The first reason being that I love animals, and I would get to work with dogs on a daily bases. The second reason was because of the purpose of the program: training service dogs to give to those in the community who have given to us. I would be learning all about service dogs, laws regarding them, and how to train them, and I would also be training a dog for a very deserving individual.

Read the rest of this entry »

A short but nice story on a football player who’s making a difference.

CAMBRIDGE SPRINGS, Pa. - Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is helping a northwestern Pennsylvania police department fight crime.

The Cambridge Springs police department used $8,000 from the Ben Roethlisberger Foundation to care for and equip a new 2-year-old German shepherd. The department paid $11,000 for the dog, which was raised in a community fundraiser.

Roethlisberger’s foundation provides funding to train, equip and purchase police dogs. The foundation has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for service dogs used by police and fire departments in Pennsylvania, Roethlisberger’s home state of Ohio and elsewhere.

We give Ben Roethlisberger four paws up!

* I think Leroy is a fan of football

Fancy’s fortune happened when she was adopted after being dumped in a drop box at the Elkhart County Humane Society. Darlene Guthrie’s good fortune occurred when she adopted Fancy.

Fancy, a 3-year-old Kai Ken-shepherd mix, was adopted by Darlene Guthrie in 2005, when Fancy was just 5 weeks old and weighed less than 3 pounds.

Guthrie, Elkhart Police Department’s animal rescue officer at the time, saw Fancy while dropping off a couple of other neglected dogs. It was love at first sight.

It wasn’t long until Guthrie noticed Fancy had a special talent - the ability to sense seizures in other dogs before they happen.

When Guthrie’s old Labrador dog began having seizures, Fancy would come to Guthrie and her husband.

Guthrie researched procedures to have a dog become a certified work dog and has been working with Fancy for the past several years. Fancy is registered with the United States Service Dog Registry and is considered a service dog.

Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t have an iPhone but for those who do they just approved a new dog game which benefits Guide Dogs of Texas. You can get yourself a virtual puppy to play with while contributing to a good cause at the same.

Guide Dogs of Texas raises, trains and provides guide dogs to visually impaired Texans to enhance their mobility and independence. It is the only guide dog school in Texas and is a member of the International Guide Dog Federation.

Dolan created a downloadable application called Pocket Puppy Raiser that allows users to interact with a virtual puppy on the Apple iPhone. Users can scratch a sleeping puppy’s belly until its leg shakes, pet the dog until it licks the iPhone screen or play a game of tug-of-war with the pup. Apple approved Pocket Puppy Raiser on May 7.

The application costs $2.99 per download and proceeds will be split among the iPhone App Store, Dolan and Guide Dogs of Texas.

To download the app, go to iTunes and search “Pocket Puppy Raiser.”

The Pocket Puppy Raiser will eventually be upgraded to include more tasks.

* Pic courtesy Guide Dogs of Texas

American Idol castoff Scott MacIntyre has a new idol, Paula Abdul. MacIntyre may not have made it into the final three but he’s about to receive something  even better than being named the next American Idol.

The singer who got booted from the show five weeks ago is visually challenged, although not completely blind.Thanks to the generosity of Abdul he is going to receive a guide dog.

Scott walked-or “test drove” as he joked-two of the organization’s Labrador retrievers on Friday, but he won’t get his dog until after the American Idol tour ends on Sept. 15. At that time, he’ll get matched up with the right pooch for him and go through a 28-day training process. “We have to find a dog that really likes loud music,” joked Paula.

Scott, who was lured to the event under the false pretense that he was there to sing, was quite surprised to learn the truth…

“Are you serious? Thank you so much,” Scott told Paula at the event, which was in honor of May being National Guide Dog Month and cosponsored by Natural Balance Pet Foods and Petco.

Watch the clip of Paula and Scott now–

What a great gesture on the part of Paula Abdul.

* Couldn’t you see yourself adopting Gus? He’s a gorgeous 2-year-old in need of a forever home.

I wanted to let Dogsters know about the Dublin Dog Foundation’s current fundraising campaign.

The DDF  promotes humanity’s use of dogs in therapeutic and service capacities. Service and guide dogs make a huge difference to those in need. Whether it’s a guide dog for the blind or therapy dog visiting the ill these dogs change lives.

The Dublin Dog Foundation is partnering with Canine Assistants to raise the funds needed to support the life of one service dog - which will be given to a Cerebral Palsy patient in need. To do this, they have fabricated a one-of-a-kind bike & sidecar, which will be raffled off online, and then ridden in the 2009 Let Freedom Bark Ride on the 4th of July.

The Ride will be a 24 hour-a-day, 400 mile charity ride from Charlotte, N.C., to Washington D.C. The foundation’s fundraising goal of $20,000 will help to cover all the costs associated with the dog’s training, graduation, food and medical bills for the dog’s lifetime.

The national raffle is now live via the Dublin Dog Foundation website, where any dog lover can buy raffle tickets for a minimum donation of $5.00 for a chance to win the official Dublin Dog Foundation one-of-a-kind bike & sidecar with an estimated value of $3,000.

Read the rest of this entry »

Since this is a dog blog, a couple times a month our boy Bo (woof!) thought it would be nice to get the news through a dog’s eyes. Bo invites everyone to read a chapter from his upcoming book BAD TO THE BONE at Bo Knows. It’s a funny memoir about the crazy adventures we have shared together over the last 14 plus years, told through Bo’s eyes.

Okay Bo, take it from here…..

I never put much stock in book learnin’.  Maybe it’s because I never went to college. Truth be told I never went to high school either, or even obedience training. I’m a dog from the streets, using common sense to get me where I am today.

Undoubtedly I’ve missed out on some great experiences: Guzzling water straight from a funnel while my brothers in arms chant “Chug, Chug, Chug!”, adding the freshman 15 with late night pizza treat delivery binges and going cow tipping instead of studying for the midterm sit/stay exam.  Ahh, if only we were able to go back in time and choose differently.

But maybe it’s not too late. I could head to Wisconsin and partake in their finals week. It appears dogs are welcome there. Here’s the story.

Library Mall is going to the dogs, and stressed-out students will be glad for it.

The Pet Therapy study break on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus will be on Wednesday from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Library Mall at the western end of State Street, with staff from University Health Services bringing their dogs to the mall so students can pet and play with the puppies.

The “counseling canines” are intended to reduce the stress that students can feel heading into final exams.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a great story, once again showing dogs really are man’s best friend. Or in this case a 12-year-old girl’s best friend.

Hunter now has her very own Diva living in the house with her, not just any Diva, this one is a diabetes service dog.

Diva is amazing at what she does, usually detecting both lows and highs before any symptoms occur. She’s even been known to bring Hunter or her parents a test kit in her mouth if that’s what it takes to get someone’s attention. That’s a blessing because Hunter can get flu-like symptoms, including stomach aches and migraines when her blood sugar is high or headaches and the shakes when it’s low.

It was Donna, who came up with the idea of bringing a service dog into the family. Her rationale was that if police dogs could be trained to pick up the scent of explosives, then dogs should also be able to differentiate someone’s breath and other scents, explaining that diabetics can have a fruity breath smell, a symptom of high blood sugar. “I wasn’t sure if anything like that existed,” she explains. After much research, Donna found that such diabetes service dogs did, in fact, exist in the form of Beverly Swartz and her company, All Purpose Canines, which specializes in placing services dogs with both diabetic and autistic children. Read the rest of this entry »

I want to thank Shadow for barking to me about a former Michael Vick dog that has undergone an amazing transformation. It’s great to hear about the dogs that were rescued and rehabilitated, once again showing it’s about the owner not the breed.

Daisy Mae, formerly part of a dogfighting operation, is now a therapy dog in Santa Barbara making weekly rounds at Cottage Hospital’s pediatric ward and Villa Riviera retirement home. Gentle and affectionate, the three-year-old cuddles with the elderly and frail, and even allows small children to hold her tight when they are undergoing painful medical procedures.

Her owner Alison Hansen found her in a shelter affiliated with the BAD RAP organization, or Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls (badrap.org). The dog was extremely withdrawn and frightened, cowering against the wall.

“Something came over me. I vowed, ‘She can never have a bad day again,’” said Hansen, who admits to originally wanting an athletic dog that she could exercise with. “I had wanted a [Labrador] experience, but what I got was a little sack of potatoes.”

Read more about Daisy Mae’s turnaround and dogfighting on the Santa Barbara Independent. If you’re looking to learn more about the breed stop by the Pit Bull friendly site Bad Rap.

* Pics courtesy PAUL WELLMAN