[RKDinOKC]

This is going to be interesting training Pepper to be an Alert Dog.

Just spent $60 ordering cotton gauze, freezer bags, and freezer containers.

When blood sugar is at the right alert level either low or high, get gauze wet in my mouth, spit them into a freezer bag, double bag, date and write blood sugar on bag, and store in a freezer container and pop em in the freezer. It's good for a month.

The saliva gauze is used to train with. The idea is the same for any scent dog. Use the scent to feed with so the dog gets a pavlovian response to the scent. Then train the dog to get your attention. Then train the dog to signal if the scent was for low or high blood sugar. Then chain them all together.

You also stop bowl feeding the dog. You either feed them as a reward for something they do, of put the food in a puzzle they have to solve to get at it. This is supposed to make them more attentive to you, and become a thinking dog by solving the puzzles to eat. It is supposed to help them learn.

Funny how the dog will get excited and think this stuff is fun. Remember training my first dog and I could actually see her thinking about what she was doing when learning something new. As she got a little older I only had to show her something new once or twice to learn to do it on command. It also worked for keeping her from doing things I didn't like. Just train her to do it on command, then she doesn't do it until you tell her to.

The training exercises they give take about 20 minutes a day. And if you can't spend at least an hour a day with the dog, don't get one.