Help Bring Diabetic Alert Dog Home

Bring Crystal, A Diabetic Alert Dog, Home for Kathy

Kathy at MS Horse Therapy

Crystal, A Diabetic Alert Dog Being trained to come home to Kathy.

A Diabetic Alert Dog Can Help Kathy Continue to Live a Full Life, Need to raise $15,000 by Dec. 15, 2013

Kathy suffers from Diabetes and Multiple Sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system which has caused her to be unable to work and causes cognitive problems and visual disturbances and other central nervous system problems. Despite these challenges, as she is able, Kathy contributes volunteer time to her community by providing spiritual support at a local hospital, does dog therapy at an assisted living facility and leads a Multiple Sclerosis support group.  Kathy finds it very difficult to manage her MS and her diabetes at the same time. Recently she has been having dangerously low blood sugars in the middle of the night while sleeping that she was fortunate to awake with such low numbers. Due to MS cognitive issues she forgets to take her blood sugar. Kathy does not always have someone available to recognize and treat these symptoms. If her blood sugar drops too low while she is alone, it can be life threatening. On the other hand, high blood sugars can cause a host of health problems over time including vision damage, heart problems, nerve damage, kidney failure and even coma and death.

A Diabetic Alert Dog is a specifically trained service dog who will be able to alert Kathy 24 hours a day when her blood sugar begins to go too high or low and can wake her up in cases of low blood sugar when she is sleeping.

Crystal is a Diabetic Alert Dog who is being trained to help Kathy stay safe. Crystal will help Kathy to live with more confidence and without fear of being alone. Diabetic Alert Dogs are trained to use their amazing sense of smell to detect both low and high blood sugars and alert their handlers of a problem BEFORE they get out of control. These dogs all go through an intense 8 month training process to learn these skills and the dog can also be trained to bring their handlers juice, a testing kit, and even can be trained to call 911 with a special phone. At the same time, Crystal will learn to be a well behaved service dog with public access training so that Kathy will be allowed to take Crystal with her everywhere.

This training can be very costly. Once Crystal is fully trained, Kathy will need to fly to her training facility in Jasper, Texas to pick Crystal up and learn how to work with her. In the meantime, Kathy has to ship her scent swatches via overnight mail to help Crystal learn to alert to her specific scents. Please help Kathy bring Crystal home by assisting in our fundraising drive. Any contribution that you make will be very much appreciated.

Tax Deductible Contributions may be sent to:

Drey’s Alert Dogs

For Kathy’s DAD Crystal

1569 East Gibson

Jasper, Texas 75951

Donations can also be made through our website:

http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/diabetic-alert-dog-for-kathy/66994