A few weeks ago, I was watching my friend’s pup, Millie. She and my dog Olive were having the best day ever: hanging out, chasing each other, and bickering over toys. When I went to drop Millie off with her dad, we found out he had had a seizure. So, I took him back to my house while we waited for his girlfriend, who lived three hours away, to get here.
Having two high-energy dogs (2-3 years old, both working breeds), I was very hesitant about bringing my friend home and taking care of him for the next few hours. The first thing I did was put the dogs outside and get him settled in. Millie was not happy about it. I could tell she already knew what was happening and wanted to be with her dad. Olive was a little behind schedule, but as soon as I let them in, she caught up.
The two of them ran straight to the couch to check on my friend. Olive claimed a spot on top of the cushions, where her weight would be supported, but she could lay her face on my friend’s lap and watch him while he napped. Millie claimed the spot at his feet, and the two of them didn’t move a muscle for over two hours.
Even though neither of them were there when the seizure happened, both knew the weight of the situation and how to handle it. How can dogs sense something that even humans can’t, and how did we get so lucky to have them in our lives?
We know service dogs are trained to alert caregivers when their person is having a medical emergency, and to help them in any way possible. The lengths these dogs will go is incredible: aside from sounding the alarm, service dogs are trained to lay next to their owner or even below them to break their fall. The extent to which a dog can detect a seizure before it happens, or if some breeds are better-suited than others, is still being researched. So, how did Millie and Olive, non-service dogs, know what was going on?
Current research suggests that untrained dogs are able to detect a seizure. They do so by smell. This is likely because the humans release a certain group of chemical odors even before their seizure. Dogs can use scent to detect a seizure up to 45 minutes before it happens, or even afterwards, as with Olive and Millie. While they may not fully understand the situation, they can ‘smell’ that something is wrong, and be there just to comfort their owners.
All the research we have about dogs using smell to detect an oncoming seizure gives us an idea that even non-service dogs can be trained to alert their human when a seizure is imminent. Even though Olive and Millie aren’t trained to detect things like this, they’re smart enough to know when something is wrong, and they handled this scary situation like pros. I don’t know about you, but it definitely helps me sleep better at night. Dogs never cease to amaze me!
