Human-Canine Collaboration in Care by Fenella Eason;

Author:Fenella Eason; [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2019-10-12T20:00:00+00:00

Measuring and recording

The charity Medical Detection Dogs only came into being in 2008, so it was very much an infant organisation when Richard applied for a medical alert assistance dog. His doctor and hospital consultant endorsed his application and the charity then asked him for a continuous record of his blood sugar levels for a week. The hospital provided him with the results in the form of ‘a series of little graphs showing when my levels were dropping and rising, when I’d had insulin, and the carb content I was eating’.

The MDD charity requires clients with assistance dogs to record two to three months of blood testing annually. Included on the computer forms to be completed by them, are questions relating to times when the dog has alerted, what the individual was doing at the time, and the blood sugar levels captured. Terry relates that Jim has 95–100% accuracy in alerting. The recordings sent to MDD enable an image of the dog’s alerting success rate, whether there are particular times or reasons why alerting has not occurred or may be inaccurate, whether training has been maintained regularly, even a picture of exercise taken, travel and transport methods to events, to work or to holiday destinations.

This information, although time-consuming to collect and enter into the form, has wide-reaching consequences, in that clients are aware of the charity’s interest in both their lives and the lives of the alert dogs and therefore must attend consistently to the ups and downs of their shared existence. At the same time, both client and charity gain evidence of the efficacy of the dogs’ work and the success of canine scent detection. The charity can offer human assistance to visit client homes to help with solving problems if test results appear unusually erratic and communication between the species looks to be blurred on occasion. The oscillating behaviours of human client and assistant dog are ‘umpired’ by the charity to ensure the mutual well-being of both.

Paul, Natasha, and Nero are soon to visit the MDD training centre for a ‘refresher’. Natasha relates that she spoke to the trainer and heard that

It will be a sort of social day; there’s three or four other partnerships going from what I can gather, and I think, because we got him in May, our annual assessment will be in May, so we’ll get a letter saying we need to give six weeks of bloods, with the highs and lows, and when Nero alerts, when he doesn’t alert and so on.

Paul refers to Nero’s alerting abilities:

Some days he’s brilliant and he can go for weeks being absolutely brilliant and catch 95–100% of everything, and then other days, it’s like he’s just completely lost the plot and he either misses them or keeps doing false ones – but I’m still convinced that it’s the … (Paul’s additional chronic illness) because the dog smells something’s not right, different; and I think we’ve said to you before, like when Natasha has a headache or a nosebleed, or whatever, his behaviour will change.

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