About Us – MD Dogs Inc

M.D. Dogs is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to provide affordable resources for medical detection dog training, standards, and research. M.D. Dogs was founded for 3 purposes:

To teach disabled individuals how to train their own medical detection dogs for a low cost.
To bring transparency to the field of Diabetic Alert Dogs.
To educate those who are wanting to purchase a trained Diabetic Alert Dog so they are able to ask relevant questions and determine the most reputable organization to purchase a dog from.

The mission of M.D. Dogs is to be a resource for service dog training, standards, and research. M.D. Dogs is a 501c3 and is possible because of contributions from others. If you are interested in financially supporting M.D. Dogs and allowing us to continue providing low cost resources regarding Medical Detection Dogs, please donate here or contact us – we are grateful for your support!

Board of Directors

Libby Rockaway is the founder of M.D. Dogs. She trained her first medical detection dog when she was 16 years old. At the time there were very few instructions describing how to train a Diabetic Alert Dog and the instructions that were available were inconsistent and conflicting. She successfully trained her first DAD and the dog was placed with an 8 year old with type 1 diabetes. Since then, Libby has been passionate about researching and training medical detection dogs. In the process she realized the industry would benefit from comprehensive self training instructions, prompting her to found M.D. Dogs.

Kathy Burgess is the creator and breeder of Comfort Retrievers. Commonly referred to as a Miniature Golden Retrievers, Comfort Retrievers have all the beauty, loyalty and love of a full size dog but wrapped in smaller package. Prior to creating this new breed, Kathy studied and practiced as a nurse. She supports the Diabetic Alert Dog industry by frequently donating puppies to be future Service Dogs, especially Diabetic Alert Dogs.

Grace Waters is studying Nursing at Belmont University. She is hoping to specialize in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. In addition to learning about type 1 in an educational setting, Grace has extensive experience with type 1 diabetes and caring for those with type 1. Because of her personal connections with type 1, she has a passion for finding a cure and until then, finding other ways to ease the burden of this disease.