When I first contacted SPWL, I was impressed by their training program and the fact that Emma, had a service dog of her own.
After talking with Gary, we drove to see if a puppy would choose me. I’m a brittle diabetic and my service dog Shelby had passed at 12yo in Aug.
I brought samples of my scent at high, low and normal and one puppy was drawn to my scent more than the others.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t old enough to be temperament tested beforehand and when she was tested a week later, she didn’t pass. She wasn’t food motivated. Via FaceTime, we were shown 3 more puppies that had passed the temperament test and we picked Riley!
She stayed at SPWL until she was 6 months old, training and learning what her job would be, a diabetic alert/PTSD service dog.
We didn’t set our expectations too high with Riley. You see, Shelby was an English white lab that we rescued from a puppy mill that had been shut down. I fell in love with her as soon as I saw her and she was my companion 24/7.
When she was 9 months old, we sent her to obedience training and afterwards, she was a joy to be with.
When she was 11 months old, she started acting strange around me, pawing and whining at me, sometimes barking. When I spoke to her trainer about her behavior, he told me to see my doctor immediately, which I did. That’s when I was first diagnosed with diabetes. We worked with Shelby and she learned to alert me when I was high or low. She also would alert other diabetics. Until she was around 8 years old, she could smell me across a football field.
We felt Shelby had such a strong sense of smell because she had so many allergies. So when she passed after being diagnosed with a tumor on her lung, we honestly thought we wouldn’t find another dog that could sense my chemical changes like Shelby could. Boy, were we wrong!!
We sent samples of my saliva on Q-tips, 15 of each (high, lows and normal) and Emma worked with Riley until we picked her up on January 14th!
She knew me right away by my smell.
On the drive back to Chicago, her and I sat in the backseat so she would start to learn that my scent would be with her 24/7 and not just during her training sessions with Emma. It was confusing at first to her, but after a 6 hour ride, she knew I was her job. After a few days, she was marking me every time my blood sugar went high or low. Emma had trained her to nose bump me when I was high and to paw me when I was low.
Well, Miss Riley loves to greet people after they ask if they can pet her with her paw, so we decided that she would just alert me for high or low with a nose bump. When I’m high, she comes over and will nose bump me politely. When I’m low, she get right in my face and nose bumps me. If I’m asleep, she will nose bump my cpap mask and stick her nose in my ear until I wake up.
She gets a small reward after she alerts me about my blood sugar levels (3 or 4 pieces of kibble) because we don’t want Riley to become over weight (which is soooo easy for an English Lab).
My husband is helping with her training obedience wise and she’s doing fantastic! She’ll be 7 months old in the 7th and she’s already running in the park off leash, something we thought she wouldn’t be doing until she was at least 16 months old. She only had 2 accidents in the house when she came home and that was because we didn’t know what her tell was that she needed to go potty. She’s on a regular schedule and just like a lab, she’s a bed hog and has to be touching my husband and myself at night. She sleeps in bed with us so that she can wake me if I bottom out or spike, which I do almost every night. I have 8 autoimmune diseases due to exposure to poisoned water when I was active duty. I was medically retired in 1987 from the US Marine Corps. I received a 70% disability in 1999 and was no longer able to work due to the advancement of my diseases. Thankfully, I’ve had Shelby and now Riley to be there for me, both physically and emotionally.
Riley is doing so well, far more than we ever expected! Thanks to Emma and the staff at SPWL!
My American Legion Post 991, held a fundraiser for us, to help cover the cost of Riley and her training. Everyone!!! Couldn’t believe how well mannered and trained Riley was, just one week after we brought her home.
She’s now a member of the Post and everyone feels like they are a part of Riley’s family.
I would highly recommend anyone looking for service dog to look at the program with SPWL. Riley is so far advanced than Shelby was at 7 months, I didn’t have to wait 2 years for another service dog and it didn’t cost me $50,000 (which I was told would be a minimum amount and they couldn’t make any guarantees). I went to 5 different veterans organizations and asked about getting help to find a diabetic service dog and they all said they couldn’t help me.
But, SPWL said no problem, said that if the first puppy didn’t work out, they would try another puppy, prom
