Thanks to her 4-legged friend, she no longer needs to be hospitalized.
What the young Brit took to be his dog’s affection was actually an attempt to warn her of health problems. Clive is actually able to detect his seizures to remind him to take his medicine.
“I couldn’t live without him”, Michelle Sutherland says of her dog Clive.
This 31-year-old woman and her husband Chris adopted him in 2012. A few months later, Michelle Sutherland began experiencing strange symptoms. She struggled to recover from the slightest infection and occasionally passed out for no apparent reason.
At the hospital, she was told that she had Addison’s disease, caused by an insufficiency of the adrenal cortex, which secretes cortisol. With a lack of this last hormone in the body, Michelle Sutherland can fall into a potentially fatal comatose state and cannot withstand emotional upheavals.
Clive’s strange behavior was a wake-up call
As he got older, Clive started biting his mouth and licking his face. Two other dogs, Border Terriers named Oscar and Jeremy, never behaved like this.
While talking to Dr. Claire Guest, co-founder of Medical Detection Dogs, at a dog event in 2013, she finally got it right.
Clive detects changes in breath odor, indicating a drop in blood sugar levels and therefore the need for treatment to prevent seizures.
After that, Clive trained for 18 months to become a certified service dog. He has learned to report these episodes half an hour before they occur, which gives Michelle Sutherland time to take her medication and thus protect herself. Thanks to her four-legged friend, she no longer needs hospitalization.
