This Labrador would make Lassie proud

By Marshall Allen

Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Danielle Londrigan met Will when he was a puppy, and she was training him as a Seeing Eye dog. But Will, a Labrador-retriever mix, washed out because he was too friendly with other dogs. So the Henderson resident has enlisted him in her service. Will’s nose can save Londrigan’s life.

Londrigan, 28, is one of about 24 million Americans who suffer from Type I diabetes, which shuts down the body’s production of insulin, a hormone that converts food into fuel. Hypoglycemia — low blood sugar levels — can cause confusion, fainting, a coma and even death if it’s untreated.

Londrigan gets hypoglycemic every few days. She treats it by quickly drinking juice or eating sugar. But the trick is detecting the low blood sugar before it’s a problem. That’s where Will comes in.

Over the years service dogs have built up quite a repertoire — guiding the blind, finding drugs, leading search and rescue missions, among others — and in Will’s case, alerting Londrigan when he can smell her low blood sugar levels.

Researchers say dogs have nearly 220 million smell-sensitive cells, compared with about 5 million for humans, and can sense odors at concentrations nearly 100 million times lower than humans.

Even untrained dogs smell and react to their owner’s hypoglycemic episodes. Experts say a minuscule scent comes on the owner’s breath first, then through the skin.

Londrigan met Will in 2003, when she lived in California. She’s always been good with animals and has worked as a wild horse trainer and mounted police instructor. So she trained Will to sniff out her hypoglycemia.

Carol Edwards, program director for the California nonprofit Dogs4Diabetics, said dogs like Will are in high demand. Trainers mold the dogs so the scent strikes a chord in them that’s similar in allure, though much stronger, to the smell of freshly brewed coffee or sizzling bacon, Edwards said.

“They’ll put together that a smell means something bad is going to happen to the owner,” Edwards said of the dogs.

Edwards said the sensitivity of the dogs’ noses is astounding. One client’s dog detected his low blood sugar while he was swimming in a chlorinated pool, she said. The dog of another client, a young gymnast, alerted her from across a crowded gymnasium.

Will’s discriminating nose might have saved Londrigan’s life in spring 2006. She was training a wild horse and Will was a half a mile away, she recalled, his tail bobbing among the sagebrush in the distance.

Londrigan’s blood sugar had dropped, but she didn’t know it until Will made a beeline into the pen, where he was not normally allowed during training. He bobbed and circled her feet until she recognized his signal. Before any low-blood-sugar symptoms kicked in, she drank a box of juice.

Crisis averted.