Librarian has service dog to guard her health

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April 7, 2010
Filed under Features, Top Stories

A dog may be a “Man’s Best Friend” but in librarian Sandy Dendy’s case, her German Shepherd is so much more–a possible life saver.

For two weeks now, Dendy has been with her very own diabetic service dog. She discovered that getting a service dog was possible when she she attended a horse show last September in Fort Worth.

“I had seen a woman there with a dog, and it was clearly not a seeing-eye dog,” Dendy said. “So I walked up to her and found out that it was a Diabetic Service Dog.”

Dendy soon decided it would be a good idea to get a service dog of her own since she had incidents concerning insuline levels while at her house and at the high school three years ago.

“I started off doing research on these service dogs once I got home and learned that there are only three states where you can get them,” Dendy said. “one of which, Arkansas, sends their dogs to Oklahoma to train their dogs, so I decided that that was were I would get my dog from.”

Dendy went and picked out Maddie-her eleven month old German Shepherd–from forty dogs at the Betheden Kennels in Oklahoma City.

“I knew Maddie was the one for me because of the 3.5 hours I was there looking at the service dogs, I kept going back to her three or four times,” Dendy said. “She and I kept communicating with each other and I kept going back to her.”

Since Maddie is still young, Dendy is still training her with the use of socks, which she puts in different places of her body to see if Maddie can sniff them out because she is trained identify low sugar levels from breath and chemical changes that come though the pores of the body.

“Maddie is trained to sense when my blood sugar is low because I give off a certain scent when I talk”, Dendy said. “Just a few minutes ago, Maddie put her paws on my knees and her face to my face when I was taking a picture, letting me know that I need to go check my blood-sugar level.”

But Dendy is not one to solely rely on Maddie to guard against unsafe blood-sugar levels.

“Maddie is one part with my family,” Dendy said, “and staff members also being part of my supporters as well.”