Hi Christina,
I had a similar problem with my 1.5 year old Whippet. She did great job alerting me to hypoglycemic scent samples but initially had problems alerting me when I was in a hypoglycemic reaction….., so when I checked my blood sugar and noticed I was low (under 70 mg/dl) I encourage her to alert me while I was in the hypoglycemic reaction. Remember to have some orange juice available but I found I could work with my dog and encourage her to alert me and I would provide the reward. I found that as I worked with her while I was at the near 70 mg/dl range I was able to build her confidence to alert and progress in the training. I would work for maybe 5 or 10 minutes before I drank my orange juice but this helped my whippet’s confidence and helped our bond because she learned to recognize and acknowledge it was perfectly okay for her to alert me. This may be a little outside the norm for training but it did help my whippet, and I always made sure I took care of the hypoglycemic reaction without incurring any additional complications to me or my whippet.
Always insure you have the glass of orange juice and glucometer near you, so you can insure you and your dog can insure that if your blood sugars starts to really go down quickly you can drink the orange juice and check your sugars, while remaining in control of the situation. Don’t endanger yourself or your dog and when in doubt…., take care of the low blood sugar first!
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