O'Kelly, Hero Puppy

[Hedgewitch]

O’Kelly

Last spring Rani gave birth to 8 puppies 3 of the 8 were sold as service dogs. The pup in the picture was sold to become a diabetic service dog, but she is also breed/show quality. The owners were at the dog show with my husband last week. It was an outdoor show so my husband shared his canopy with them since this was their first show. The puppy took first place in the puppy rally part of the show. Yeah OKelly!

It was the second day when the puppy stole the day. She was only 6 months old and I can’t stop bragging. She was lavender girl from my last litter and was sold for three reasons the first to be a diabetic service dog, and then breed quality and third for showing. I like all my breed quality dogs to be shown.

Back to the hero story; her name is O’Kelly now. O’Kelly went with her owner exploring while her other owner was busy with temperament testing of 8 week old puppies. He decided to explore off of the walking trail and into the woods. At some point his sugar dropped and he began to feel sick to his stomach and hot, so he had to sit down. O’Kelly had been alerting to his sugar but he was not paying attention. She had stated alerting to his sugar when she was 4 months old. Now he was sitting down O’Kelly was licking his face demanding he do something about his sugar, but it was too late he passed out. I don’t know how long he was out when she decided it was time to go for help.

She was all ready trained in advanced obedience, but was never trained to go for help. She was remember only 6 months old. She had to navigate out of the woods and back to the walking trail and then back to through all the people at the outdoors dog show to where her other owner was. My husband was with her other owner too. O’Kelly started to whine and prance around and her other owner saw her and wondered where her husband was. The pup was acting strange. She, my husband and other people began to follow the pup. She led them back along through the crowd, up the walking trail and through the woods until they found her husband on the ground.

He had woken up since then but was confused and scared. Since that day in the forest he pays attention to O’Kelly when she tells him his sugar is low. The next day at the show, she told him right in front of everyone his sugar was low and proved she was right.

O’kelly is now 8 months old and has started waking her owner up in the middle of the night when his sugar is low. He has learned not to be angry with his pup when she wakes him but to get up and check his sugar no matter how sleepy he is. Recently he has been having trouble at work, with bouts of low sugar, his lowest being 30 degrees. This being blood level is low enough to cause a coma. He is what is called a brittle diabetic. Even with a blood sugar pump nothing seems to keep him level. The dog trainer has stepped up O’Kelly’s training in the public access in hopes she will soon be able to go into work with her owner.

My service dog Mali, (they are the same breed of dog), received her fulltime working harness at eleven months, I can only hope O’Kelly is able to do the same.