Life-Saving Labrador Sniffs Out Danger for Diabetic Girl

Shirley is one of just a few hypo-alert dogs in the UK — trained to smell when a diabetic person's blood sugar reaches dangerously low levels. Now in a world first, she has been assigned to protect 6-year-old Rebecca Farrar.

Diabetes used to take over Rebecca Farrar's life, with hospital visits a weekly, sometimes daily occurrence. But since the arrival of Shirley, the yellow Labrador-golden retriever dog, she's stopped collapsing completely.

Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of four, Rebecca, from Northampton in the UK, was unable to feel any change in her sugar levels and as a result, had to carry several sugar-level tests with her at all times. As reported in Britain's Daily Mail, her mom had to give up work so she could be on call at a moment's notice and barely slept at night for fear of her daughter slipping into a coma.

Luckily, those days are over thanks to their new and much-loved dog, Shirley. One of eight hypo-alert dogs in Britain trained to detect hypoglycemia, Shirley has become quite the hero in the Farrar house. The dog accompanies Rebecca to school and watches over her as she sleeps. Thanks to her sensitive sense of smell, Shirley can detect a change in odor when Rebecca's sugar levels change. The clever dog's signal for help is either licking her hands, or sitting on her lap. If that doesn't work she fetches her mom Claire. Now that's a man's best friend!

Cancer and Bio-detection Dogs, the charity that trained Shirley achieved success back in 2004, when they managed to train dogs to sniff out bladder cancer in human urine samples. Now, they are also focusing on training dogs to alert their owners prior to a medical emergency such as with diabetes patients.

"I didn't realize how much she would change our lives," said Claire (Rebecca's mother), who heard about the dogs from a newspaper article. "Rebecca's not had a single hypo when Shirley's been around and she's never been wrong," she said, adding: "She's worth her weight in gold!" And Rebecca couldn't agree more. "I can't imagine living without her now," she said of her new canine companion. "She has saved my life so many times."

For more details on hypo-alert dogs and sponsoring a puppy from the charity, please visit the Cancer and Bio-detection website, here.

Photo via hypoalertdogs.co.uk.