Simon king Discover Dogs 2021 London medical detection dog demonstration

A medical response dog is an

assistance dog An assistance dog is a dog that receives specialized training to aid an individual with a disability in navigating everyday life. Assistance dogs can be trained by an organization, or by their handler. Terminology 'Assistance dog' is the inte ...

trained to assist an individual who has a medical disability. Typically, they are dogs whose job does not handle primarily

epilepsy Epilepsy is a group of Non-communicable disease, non-communicable Neurological disorder, neurological disorders characterized by a tendency for recurrent, unprovoked Seizure, seizures. A seizure is a sudden burst of abnormal electrical activit ...

psychiatric Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of deleterious mental conditions. These include matters related to cognition, perceptions, mood, emotion, and behavior. Initial psychiatric assessment of ...

-based conditions, though some

seizure response dog A seizure response dog (SRD) (also known as seizure dog) is a dog demonstrating specific assisting behaviour during or immediately after a person's epileptic seizure or other seizure. When reliably trained such dogs can serve as service dogs ...

s or

psychiatric service dog A psychiatric assistance dog or psychiatric service dog is a sub-category of assistance dog trained to assist their handler with a psychiatric disability or a mental disability, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disord ...

s may also be referred to as medical response. Many medical response dogs "alert" their handlers to conditions before they occur. For example,

diabetes alert dog A diabetic alert dog is an assistance dog trained to detect high (hyperglycemia) or low (hypoglycemia) levels of blood sugar in humans with diabetes and alert their owners to dangerous changes in blood glucose levels. This allows their owners to ...

s partnered with

diabetic Diabetes mellitus, commonly known as diabetes, is a group of common endocrine diseases characterized by sustained high blood sugar levels. Diabetes is due to either the pancreas not producing enough of the hormone insulin, or the cells of th ...

persons may be trained to detect when the handler's

blood sugar The blood sugar level, blood sugar concentration, blood glucose level, or glycemia is the measure of glucose concentrated in the blood. The body tightly regulates blood glucose levels as a part of metabolic homeostasis. For a 70 kg (1 ...

becomes too high or low. In addition to or in the absence of this training, medical response dogs are also often trained skills to help in their handlers' symptoms, such as bringing

medication Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to medical diagnosis, diagnose, cure, treat, or preventive medicine, prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmaco ...

s or a

telephone A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...

, providing bracing and other mobility assistance, or any other number of tasks. Many medical response dogs may be trained by an organization or by their handler. Like all

s, they must be of a particular work-loving personality and be properly

socialized In sociology, socialization (also socialisation – see spelling differences) is the process of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society. Socialization encompasses both learning and teaching and is thus "the means by which social and ...

if expected to work in public. There are no

breed A breed is a specific group of breedable domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist seve ...

or size restrictions other than those directly related to the tasks needed. The allowed public accessibility of medical response dogs varies from region to region. In general, areas with laws protecting the usage of

guide dog Guide dogs (colloquially known in the US as seeing-eye dogs) are assistance dogs trained to lead people who are blind or visually impaired around obstacles. Although dogs can be trained to navigate various obstacles, they are red–green c ...

s and other assistance dogs, such as in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, also cover medical response dogs as well. According to ADA law in the United States, medical response dogs are guaranteed access to any facility in which the public is allowed to enter. Owners and staff of establishments are not permitted to inquire about or request proof of an assistance dog handler's disability, require the handler to provide documentation regarding the dog's training, or ask that the dog perform tasks to prove the dog's ability. Laws concerning assistance dogs and air travel differ from ADA laws and are set by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The rules established in 2020 by the U.S. Department of Transportation allow airlines to require the submission of forms attesting to the dog's health, temperament, training, and ability to relieve itself in a sanitary manner

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