A seeing-eye dog for the blind is one of the more visible kinds of service animals.
Photo by Agência Brasil via wikipedia
We post a lot about the vital roles they play in the lives of the people they help, but it’s worth remembering that not all service dogs are the same. A great article on dogster.com offers a look at the duties of ten types of service dogs:
5. Seizure alert dog
Seizure alert dogs are a controversial type of service dog who react with a specific type of behavior right before her human has a seizure. The ability to alert to seizures seems to be a natural ability for a small number of dogs, although some neurology experts say there is no reliable evidence to suggest that dogs can reliably predict seizures. On the other hand, many patients, families, and trainers insist their dogs do accurately predict and alert to oncoming seizures, and stories about pet dogs who alert without training have received a lot of media attention. Some epilepsy organizations, like the BC Epilepsy Society, state that it’s not possible for dogs to be trained to alert to seizures, but some dog training agencies (including UK-based Support Dogs and 4 Paws For Ability in the U.S.) say it is possible to train a dog to alert.
There are more, but it’s still remarkable to see what these beautiful, brilliant, loyal pups can accomplish.