How To Obtain A Service Dog For Seizures

What does a seizure help dog do?

Seizure Warning

At four Paws for Ability we train service dogs to recognize the smell changes related to when a child is having a seizure. The dog is placed equally role of a Three Unit Team where the canis familiaris alerts the parent by barking, and the parent responds to the seizure and assists the child. For 4 Paws to provide the preparation, a child should be having a minimum of 3-four seizures each calendar month.4 Paws has a loftier success rate in the seizure aid domestic dog responding to the seizure either during the seizure, or at times, even earlier!

Note: Dogs have amazing noses, but considering the alert is based on many factors beyond giving the dog a command (ie proximity to the child, frequency of seizures, a dogs power to independently respond to a context without handler direction, etc) this means thatan alarm cannot exist guaranteed. 4 Paws volition support families receiving this skill to the best of our ability.

Boosted Tasks

iv Paws service dogs are trained case specifically for each kid, and the following are boosted tasks that might be benign to a child experiencing seizures.

Balance support

Some children have remainder needs every bit a result of the seizure and/or medication side effects. 4 Paws is able to train the service domestic dog to provide balance support as function of the Three Unit Team. This ways that the parent is holding on to the primary leash, the service canis familiaris is wearing a harness and the child tin can agree on to the handle of the harness. This skill is primarily used in public, because the canis familiaris is wearing their equipment and is not for the child to independently utilise in the abode or in public. If a child were to fall down as a result of the seizure, the service dog is not able to "catch" the child equally the dog would not know what direction the kid were to fall. Instead, our goal is that the dog provides an alert by barking in this case to notify a parent to answer.

Behavior support

If the child is struggling behaviorally or emotionally, a service dog can be a great tool to provide chore trained calming, comforting and redirecting support. 4 Paws uses the term Behavior Disruption for these tasks which include the canis familiaris nuzzling the kid, laying their mitt on the kid, resting their head in the child's lap, etc. Many children discover this a condolement after a seizure also as during medical appointments.

Other Possible Benefits

There are many possible benefits that a child may experience when partnered with a seizure help dog. The dog often becomes a best friend and companion to the kid, provides condolement at night by sleeping in the child's room, and creates a social span between the kid and other people when out in public. A domestic dog can also enhance self esteem through the responsibility of caring for the dog. Some families even report that the child experiences a decrease in seizure that may have been triggered past anxiety producing circumstances.

Common Questions and Answers

Exercise yous only place seizure assistance dogs with children?

This is correct. 4 Paws For Ability places Seizure Assistance Dogs with young children who accept any grade of epilepsy or other condition causing seizures. While nosotros will work with teens and adults who notwithstanding live at abode and, for all intents and purposes due to intellectual and cerebral filibuster will never role independently, we do not work with teens and adults who are able to function at typical age level and independently

How are the dogs trained?

Families send in odour articles that the child was wearing during the seizure and the 4 Paws trainers use the articles to teach the domestic dog to recognize the odor. For 4 Paws to provide this training a child would be having a minimum of 3-four seizures each calendar month in the half-dozen months prior to the placement grooming class

My child is having frequent seizures at present, but what if we reach ameliorate seizure control by the fourth dimension the domestic dog is in advanced training?

If a child is nonetheless having some seizures during avant-garde training, which is during the 6 months earlier your placement training course, then the trainers volition do the all-time chore that they tin can with the articles that they receive. Some families may inquire other four Paws families to send in seizure scent manufactures on their behalf. If a child is not having whatever seizures, that is bully news! However for the training, it does mean that the service domestic dog will non exist able to learn this job. A family unit could cull to wait to meet if the seizures increase in frequency and so become into the placement course schedule at that point. Or, if in that location are other needs that the child has, then the focus of the dog's preparation tin can move to those things. If the child starts to accept seizures once more later on the service domestic dog has been placed, then the service dog can return to 4 Paws to run into if that is a job that the service canis familiaris could acquire.

What does a 3 Unit of measurement Team mean?

A Three Unit Team means that a parent is able to handle the service dog on behalf of the child and this is the way in which we are able to identify service dogs with young children and/or individuals who accept been impacted cognitively and would need adult support

Is it ever a parent that is the handler for the Three Unit Team?

A parent is ordinarily the handler, however it tin be anyone who has received the grooming necessary to handle the service dog. For example, at school it could exist a one on one aid.

Team Zodiac and Bella

"ii years ago Bella got to meet her new best friend, confidant, surreptitious keeper, and most chiefly her lifesaver. We can't thank the volunteers and staff enough for beingness a part of training Zodiac to exist the all-time service dog for Bella. We are so humbled by the sacrifice you lot all fabricated by helping raise him knowing that yous would have to give him dorsum and spotter him go to someone else and modify their life. Only know your boy is not just bringing a smile to Bella's face everyday with the funny things he does, but also that he has saved her life and then many times in the last two years. So thank you for being a part of the reason why Bella is still here."