If you or someone you love regularly deals with seizures or has a medical condition that makes them prone to sudden seizures, a service dog for seizures can greatly help you out. Seizure service dogs are highly trained and can help perform a variety of tasks to indicate the onset of seizures and give you greater peace of mind when going about your daily tasks and dealing with your medical condition.
Our article tells you all you need to know about a service dog for seizures.
Can Service Dogs Help With Seizures?
Service dogs can help individuals who experience seizures in a number of different ways. These dogs can indicate the onset of seizures, help retrieve help if an individual becomes unconscious or enters into an emergency situation, and bring their owner’s medication.
For many individuals with certain medical conditions that impact their lives daily, having the help of a seizure dog as they go out in public and complete their daily tasks gives them a great sense of comfort and independence.
Many seizure service dogs are highly trained to help their owners in every aspect of their lives, and these dogs are often tailor-trained to help their owners with the specifics and nuances of their condition.
Seizure Service Dog Tasks
Seizure service dogs often perform a wide range of tasks for their owners. Common seizure service dog tasks include:
- Opening and closing cabinets or doors
- Retrieving phones, medication, and water
- Alerting their owner to an oncoming seizure
- Guiding their owner to a safe and quiet space before a seizure or as needed
- Providing deep pressure therapy and grounding their owner
- Acting as mobility support or a buffer for the owner to lie down on
- Fetching help or emergency support as needed
Keep in mind that many seizure service dogs can be trained to meet your exact needs, so if you don’t see a task that you would need on this list, don’t worry. You can speak to a professional trainer about training specific tasks to your own service dog, or you can make sure that the organization you are adopting your seizure service dog from incorporates specific tasks into your dog’s skill set.
Can I Train My Own Seizure Service Dog?
It is totally possible to do your own service dog training, as there are many different courses available for you to choose from. These courses can help you develop your dog’s basic obedience skills and then build on these skills with more complex tasks.
Of course, it’s important to adopt a dog that has the right temperament for service dog work, meaning that they are eager to learn, strong and large enough to provide mobility support if needed, and free of behavioral issues that may cause them to act out in public.
Where Can I Adopt A Service Dog For Seizures?
There are many different organizations that fully train service dogs and place them with individuals in need. However, the cost of adopting a fully trained service dog can be quite high, typically ranging from around $20,000 to $50,000.
Some organizations and local or national foundations do provide grants and other help to subsidize this cost, but there are typically waitlists for seizure service dogs that are fully trained and at a lower cost.
Taking some time to research both local and national seizure service dog organizations is the first step to adopting a trained seizure service dog.
Getting Started With Your Seizure Service Dog
Individuals who deal with regular seizures or suffer from medical conditions that cause seizures can greatly benefit from the help of a seizure service dog. Not only can these dogs often detect seizures, but they can also provide safety and support for an individual experiencing a seizure.
If you think you could benefit from a seizure service dog in your life, you can speak to your medical provider about training a service dog or adopting a fully trained service dog to meet your needs.
