California Medical Alert Training - A Success!!
Two IAAD trainers, the Canine Programs Director and Advanced Trainer, and 4 dogs, in a Pacifica piled high and excitement that motivated a 22 hour trip into 2 full days!
It started with interest in learning from a school who pioneered scent based diabetic alert training. The meeting of the minds turned into a lifelong friendship, between trainers and organizations.
IAAD had no expectations when reaching out to the NICST - Dogs 4 Diabetics team in California. There was simply a drive to understand, have a few conversations and potentially share some training methodology. When the team in California invited IAAD down to join an immersive program; learning how to fully train a diabetic alert dog, it was a beautiful shock. Timing made it such that the IAAD team had a few weeks to decide if it was a possibility. Families were involved in the decision, kids - both two and four legged, impacted…
And they were off….
Staying in an Air BnB that allowed dogs close to the NCIST center was the easy part.. Have you ever seen a 700 sq foot accommodation with up to 8 dogs and 4 adults living in and out of it at one time? Organized chaos… Like a dance from the moment of rising to the moment of sleep. Luckily the team is extremely adept at keeping up after puppies!
The training consisted of 12 hour days at the Center with training and repetition and sessions and volunteer engagements.. With cleaning sample jars and honing the skills associated with bucket training.. With learning how to coordinate bodies so that the dogs weren’t inadvertently given behavioural cues.. The days so full at times, the evenings were short and sleep, fast.
The pups were exhausted at the end of the night, every night.. They focused and surprised even Heather with their resilience and drive to find their targets.. When one pup didn’t love the job, another was brought down to test the waters and knocked it out of the park! The trainers finished their training and the pups finished theirs and graduation for our pups felt so hopeful. Four pups with brand new skills to share with the community!
The memories that were made in those 6 weeks, are ones that will be carried for a lifetime by both the IAAD crew and the NICST crew. The friendships fast and to last a lifetime..
Thank you NICST!
