Eaton Canyon Hike

Last Sunday we went on a hike to the Eaton Canyon Falls with another Canine Hope family, Luke & Jedi. Jedi is a DAD in training, and is doing amazingly well, and Luke is one of the cutest little 4 year olds you've ever seen. So we packed up the family and labs and headed to Pasadena.

Training "Leave It"

I am hardly a dog trainer. I was really proud when we taught our Great Dane to sit years ago. But as the handler of service dogs that go out in public, constant and continuous training is required to maintain sharpness in the dog, and to get the dog to fit your lifestyle. So we try and work some kind of obedience training/work into every single day.

We take these dogs everywhere with us, and most of the time, that means kids are around. The also means potential food being carried at dog height, food being dropped, toys, all kinds of fun things for a lab to grab. Perhaps your going out to a restaurant, and need to put your dog under the table. Is there stray french fries down there? Perhaps a half eaten churro at an amusement park? Or maybe something really dangerous to dogs like chocolate or grapes. Having a dog that knows "leave it" can make your life easier.

Displaying Calm

A very important trait for a service dog that is required to go out in public needs to have is "calm". Think of an action movie with explosions or gun shots, 4th of July fireworks, or an honor roll assembly at an elementary school with sudden bursts of applause. (video after the jump)

Night Time Checks

My wife and I are meeting more and more newly diagnosed T1 families, both in person at events, or that ask questions about our dogs, or on-line, Facebook, etc, that are being told something by their Endo's that is absolutely alarming to us. After their children have been stable over night (I don't even know what the hell that means), they can skip the night time checks and sleep through the night.

Smashing A Type 1 Diabetic Myth

Type 1 Diabetic myth #1. Type 1 diabetics can't eat candy, sugar, doughnuts, etc.

The truth is, type 1 diabetics can eat anything they want, as long as they take insulin to cover the carbohydrates of what they are eating. Type 1 diabetes is NOT caused by diet or lack of exercise, it is an autoimmune disease that results in the destruction of insulin producing cells in the pancreas. This leads to increased blood glucose, and requires an injection of synthetic insulin, either by needle or pump.

A Day at the Museum

My mom (the kids "Nana") had a birthday last week, so to celebrate, we took the kids, the wonder twins, and Nana to the Natural History Museum. I was running the LA Marathon the next morning, so it sounded like a great way to relax, spend time with the family, and calm the nerves.

The museum has been through some major changes the last 2 years, with a whole brand new dinosaur wing that is pretty awesome. There is also a great new cafe. They are still building out the outdoor space, so that was all closed off.

Another Crummy Video

One of these times, I promise to shoot a decent, quality video of all of this, but as often is the case, this happens when you least expect it. I missed the beginning of the alert as I didn't have my phone next to me, so what you missed was the initial Raven alert of her bringing me the bringsel. She sat in front of me, but I had to move her to get my phone, so she headed to the dog bed. Major did his natural alert, which is to put 2 paws on me and start licking my hand. On a side note, this video is better lit :)

Canine Hope goes to Oceanside

On Sunday, a large group of Canine Hope for Diabetics families headed down to Oceanside. We all met at the train station and took a 2 hour train ride down. That was a great way to travel, as we are often busy at these events, and the train ride gave us time to chat and catch up with everyone, and made the time fly by! I believe the final count was 49 people and 14 dogs. The weather just happened to be amazing!

Welcome Home RJ!

RJ had a lot of training this weekend!

 Meet RJ! I had the amazing pleasure of tagging along and shooting some photos of RJ and his type 1 person Lori this weekend. R.J. is going home with Lori today, another AMAZING Canine Hope DAD! R.J. is another puppy that I have had the pleasure of seeing raised from the very early stages of training to being placed with his family. And now, one of my FAVORITE things to do is to go and snap some pics of the new team on their going home weekend.

Sometimes, You Just Need A Hug

20130309-IMG_1316, a photo by fwisneski on Flickr.

Sometimes an image says so much more. A split second moment. This particular image hits home for me on why these dogs are so important to their people.

An Alert, Start to Finish

So what does an alert look like from start to finish? Last night, I was able to take some really crappy video of Major doing a classic "Major" alert. I was sitting at my desk working on the computer, and Stella was in her room. He gives me "the stare", then puts 2 paws on me. As for the rest? Well, just watch and see after the jump...

Superheroes

Why a DAD? Part 3 of an on going topic

On Saturday, the whole family went to a memorial service. An amazing, dear friend, who has been a MAJOR supporter of our journey to getting Major (see what I did there?) lost his girlfriend 2 weeks ago. The service was at her amazing estate out near Ojai.

It was mainly an outdoor affair, with close friends and relatives. The grounds have miniature horses, cats, peacocks, and a pond with koi. We were sitting in the backyard chatting, and Major alerted. We checked Stella, and she was 138. Essentially a great, non alert number in our target zone of 80 to 140.

What's With All This Training Talk?

I talk a lot about the amount of work these dogs require, and will continue to for the rest of their lives. When I mention to friends that we are going to a training session, or that I take the dogs out and work obedience with them, they often times just assumed that would eventually end. After all, these dogs have been through 1-2 years of training with some of the best trainers around, so what gives?

Raven working with distractions

Boy That's A Lot Of Stuff

We have a 10 year old type 1 diabetic daughter and a 5 year old son. Whenever we go out, even if it's just to the grocery store, we require a lot of stuff.

But for the sake of this post, let's assume we are going out for a whole day. Let's say we will meet some friends for a trip to the Arboretum, and then head off to dinner. How much stuff do we need to take to make sure we can get through the day? Without a trip to an ER?

A Great Weekend

This weekend was a busy one. We celebrated my son's 5th birthday all weekend, and went with a couple of Canine Hope families to the Arboretum.

We started off at the Lazy Dog Cafe for lunch. It is one of our families favorite places to go for lunch, and it has "dog" right in the name, what's not to love? The picture above shows the family waiting for our table. They are in the "missing man" formation, as I should be in the seat on the right :-)

Why a DAD? Part 2 of an ongoing topic

Last week I covered the first reason why we have a DAD, night alerting and back-up plans for zombies. Today, I will cover my second reason, which for the uninitiated sounds crazy, but once you've witnessed it, never ceases to amaze. We call it "remote alerting"

Yesterday here in the U.S. was President's Day, a school holiday for our kids. I didn't have the day off, but my wife has the amazing good fortune to be able to work from home. I came home from work at about 4:15 pm, and both of our kids were playing in the backyard. Running around, riding scooters, getting dirty, burning off energy.  I came in the back door, put my stuff down, and found my wife in the kitchen starting to prep dinner. Major was on a place (a mat where we ask them to "down, stay"), and Raven was tethered to my wife doing some training. We started talking about our day.

Get to know the DAD's! Heeeeerrrrrreeee's RAVEN!

Raven wants to say "Hi!". Meet Raven, Raven is the second half of Team Black Dogs Rule. She completes the circle.

She is no prissy princess. She leads with her tail, and when it get's going, she has a hard time walking straight. This girl is a BIG personality, with a zest for life. She goes head first into everything. No, really. That's why she has the tell tail white whiskers between her eyes. Old battle wounds from chasing a ball into a palm tree:)

Get to know the DAD's! First up, Major!

 This is Major. He is a Diabetic Alert Dog, my daughter's service dog. He was matched with our family back in October of 2011. This is the only other man (aside from me & my son) that my daughter is allowed to love :-)

This post is designed to help you learn a little more about our DAD's and their individual strengths and weaknesses. Just like you and I, these dogs have their own personalities. If you have a service dog, or are in the process of getting one, considering one etc, it is very important to understand that each dog is different, and will require some molding both of you, and of the dog, to fit into your life style.

Why a DAD?

So, aside from the question "Why 2 dogs?", the next question comes up alot.

"Why do you need a DAD?"

I will share just 1 of many specific reasons here. This will probably be the first of an on-going series of "Why a DAD?".

As Type 1 parents, we tend to walk around in perpetual exhaustion. There are multiple checks at night. Our night goes like this, and I will keep it simple, based on an average night:

1. Check the girl's BS when she goes to bed.  (If it's in range, great. If not, I could do 3 more posts on all the different things that may need to happen, decisions to be made, etc. Bedtime is scary time)

2. Check again when the parents go to bed.

3. Set Alarm for midnight and 3. (This is normal unless a low correction or an aggressive high correction is made)

4. Check her again at wake-up (6am)

Now we do all of this even WITH a DAD. Animals are living, breathing things, just like us. They can miss an alert, be extremely tired from a day out with the kids, not feel well, any number of things could lead to a missed alert. So the DAD's aren't robots or alarms, they are part of a redundant back up system. A safety net. Dogs are NOT responsible for my child's health or life, we parents are. But they do come in really handy.

Which leads us to last night.