hi! i have a question about your migraine alert dog- did you train them to do that, or did they alert on their own? wondering because i am looking to train one for myself!
Hey nonny! First of all, thank you for reaching out, and to me of all people for advice on this subject. Second, let me have a bit of a chuckle because I actually have an old ask chain in my inbox from forever ago when I started my journey to another blogger about this exact same thing.
At the time, I knew service animals were a thing, but migraine dogs were a very rare thing to come across (at least in my experience).
I know how bad migraines can be; they aren't fun and I wouldn't wish them on anybody, and am more than happy to talk about our journey in order to help others.
I am going to suggest a couple things here, some of which might seem a bit counterintuitive, but trust me they make a load of difference.
First of all, if you haven't already, start making a lot of your migraine activity. This can help you with a lot of things, including neurologists, possible disability claims, training, and understanding your migraines better.
This is a sample page from one of mine. I am absolutely shit at keeping them up, so there are pages where I summarize a few months of activity because I just let it slide.
I have spaces here for:
Aegon alerting
When he alerted (this page is indicated as a response only, meaning that he did his alert behavior after my symptoms had started)
My pain levels
If there was a barometric trigger
What the barometric trend was if there was a trigger
If I took my emergency medication and when (how often if you have a multi dose would be helpful. The one I was on at this time allowed for two pills two hours apart if there wasn't any relief within a 24hr period)
How much caffeine I took, as I find that it can help speed the absorption of medications for me, and I was also monitoring how much I had at the time
How much water I took in during the duration of the episode if I was able to
If I had a "silent migraine" aka multiple body symptoms without a headache, as I have gotten migraines with and without.
If I went to the ER (at the time I didn't have anyone who would take us : Aegon went with me because I also have some medical PTSD and EMTs in my area weren't thrilled about him in the ambulance (for his safety) so I went way less than I SHOULD have.
When I went and how long I spent in the ER
And room for any notes I felt I needed to write down.
I also highly recommend getting yourself a pair of WeatherX ear plugs and downloading their app (it's free and you can order plugs through it).
It tracks the atmospheric pressure data in your area (you have to enable location for it but for your health I think it's worth it. You can set your threshold to whatever you want in several different measurements. I have mine on the lowest setting so I can track pretty much everything, positive or negative, because I can't pin down an exact range that specifically triggers me, just that shifts CAN act as triggers.
I have been perfectly fine with a nearly 1inHg positive shift but have had something as small as a -.03 trigger a migraine before.
Now to get back to your question:
The answer is actually both.
Technically, even with other medical alert and response dogs, even natural alerters have to have some training. This is so that their behavior becomes reliable enough to happen in a variety of situations if they sense your trigger and is in essence what makes a service dog a service dog.
There is a way to train migraine dogs that are not natural alerters.
It is more or less the same as training a dog for nose work or any other type of detection game and involves you taking a lot of cotton swabs of your own mouth during migraines of different levels and keeping them stored to train with, and I can go into that later if you would like or need me to.
Aegon began to alert naturally as a part of our bonding process. It was a pretty cool experience to be a part of and though it is something that any team can probably go through, I chalk him getting it as quickly as he did on the fact that his breed is known to make deep, lifelong bonds with their owners that are nothing short of legendary.
Aegon, after all, is an Akita.
When I started training him for migraines, thinking I would get more responses than alerts and hoping he would bring me my medication, I started giving him praise when I would take said emergency medications for the migraine. No matter how bad I felt, If I was taking that pill, he got a cookie.
This started from more or less day one, while we also worked on basics and other service dog things.
By the time he was about a year to a year and a half, he had started displaying behaviors that were atypical of his breed before I would take those meds, but had started to feel poorly. He would stare at me, or come over and smack me with one of his paws.
So I would get him a cookie and he would watch me take my meds.
By the time he was 2, he was doing this and hour before a migraine hit.
And once I took a chance on the WeatherX, figuring "hey at the very least I could put them in when I have a migraine and they will buffer sound", I found that he also would alert for pressure changes.
He gets a cookie every time he does this, unless we are doing public access work, in which case he gets a lot of love, which he has almost always preferred while working anyway.
Rhaenyra is getting rewarded now whenever Aegon acts in concert with her doing strange one off behaviors. I will check her work against him and how my body is feeling and she already seems to be understanding some things, but it's too early to tell with her quite yet. It is interesting tandem training her with him, because you can see her gears turning in her head when he suddenly starts being very "in" to me and wanting close contact. She is starting to do a few alerts before he is, with him being VERY close behind her.
Sometimes the best teacher for a dog is another dog. They can translate human.
