I have Type 1 diabetes and have never trusted dog-training companies that claim that dogs can help detect low and high blood sugar levels in people with diabetes. A story called The Hope and Hype of Diabetic Alert Dogs that aired yesterday on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered program tells me I was right to have my doubts.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that can be difficult to manage. We use handheld glucometers or other technologies throughout the day and night to check the amount of sugar in our bloodstream. Low blood sugars can lead to poor judgment, loss of consciousness, even death; over time, high blood sugar levels can cause kidney disease and sight loss. I was diagnosed at age 7, before home blood sugar monitoring was available. Type 1 diabetes is what caused my blindness.

The story mentions a lawsuit where a group of more than a dozen people with diabetes, each of whom had spent $15,000 for a so-called diabetic alert dog sued a trainer for fraud and won a judgment for $800,000. It also reported that Virginia’s attorney general sued a service dog vendor after customer complaints about its dogs, which were marketed as “backed by science” and “100 percent effective.” The piece referred to research on diabetic alert dogs in a 2017 study done by psychologist Linda Gonder-Frederick at University of Virginia. From the story:

Before the study, their owners believed the dogs would prove more accurate than their glucose monitor devices. That didn’t happen.
“Overall, they really were not that reliable or accurate,” she says.

Another Oregon researcher did a study of diabetic alert dogs in 2016 and found only 12% of the dogs’ alerts happened during actual low blood sugar events, and the dogs also had false positives.

The NPR Story comes right out and says it: diabetic alert dogs can’t reliably detect blood sugar changes from diabetes. More than a million Americans have Type 1 diabetes, and many of us with Type 1 wish desperately that dogs could help. I am grateful to NPR for setting this straight, and leave you with this very important warning for parents from the story:

Her research also contradicted what some believe — or hope — is true: That the dogs can be a good safety net for those who worry about blood sugar dropping as they sleep. Some parents have turned to the dogs to safeguard their children during the night.
“The accuracy just plummeted during the night. Dogs have to sleep too. Obviously, a dog cannot work 24/7,” Gonder-Frederick says.

I love traveling. I don’t need a big, extravagant trip to feel pleased about my travel abilities, either. Just taking the train to downtown Chicago is enough to make me feel proud of myself, simply because I did it by myself – or at the very least, without my parents.

I’ve taken cabs, buses, Ubers, Amtrak and Metra trains all by myself. I’ve flown many times before, but always with my parents.

I have friends who are also blind and have flown countless times, and thinking about them always left me feeling a mixture of pride and envy. I was proud of them for their independence, but also envious, wishing I had that kind of courage. I really wanted to challenge myself, so I set a goal: this year, 2020, I would fly alone at least once.

A friend of mine who is blind flew out to Chicago from Houston in November to celebrate my birthday with a group of friends, and while Juan was here we discussed my “first solo flight” idea further. I asked him question after question about everything. What airline do you recommend? Any specific airport? Do you do curbside check-in or go to the counter? How did your parents react? Juan’s parents seem similar to mine, especially in how they raised us as children with disabilities. So hearing how his parents reacted to him flying alone gave me the last boost of confidence I needed. Juan invited me to come to visit him and his family in Houston, and I started looking up flights. Imagine how hard it was to get through finals week – my last finals week, no less, as I graduated in December! – spending every minute of my free time looking up airfares. The affordable prices were taunting me.

I was so tempted to act first and think later – buy the tickets, then tell my parents about it. Realistically, I’d never do that, but checking fares and checking my bank account, knowing I could actually afford this…it all amped up the excitement. I can do this!

My parents were very encouraging, and my dad helped me book my flight on the Southwest website. I was pleased that the Southwest website provided me the option to check a checkbox indicating I am blind and needed gate assistance. A few days before the trip I had been waiting so long for, an anticipated snow storm threatened to ruin the entire thing. I spent the day before and the day of the trip asking our Google home device how much snow was expected, already jumping ahead and asking Juan for alternative dates for me to fly from Chicago just in case. He wasn’t worried at all. “This is how Chicago always is!” he laughed. “You’re always supposed to get a storm – it won’t happen.”

And it didn’t!

Stay tuned for Part Two, where Alicia talks about waiting for airport assistance, getting through airport security with a white cane, and, eventually, sitting in the plane ready for take-off.

Late last month the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) concerning traveling by air with service animals. What that means is that the DOT has once again released a document proposing new regulations governing air travel with service animals.

So here’s where you come in: DOT is giving the public 60 days to comment on the proposed regulations, and the NPRM can be accessed here along with a summary created by DOT with the main points. Some tips for locating the section if you wish to comment:

1. Find a link at the end of the summary with the docket number associated with the NPRM
2. Hit enter on the docket number and you’ll get to a page with a “comment now” button
3. Hit that button to get to the form where you can submit your comments

Remember, the proposed regulations are not yet law. So far they are just proposals to change the law. I just flew home to Chicago from Newark a couple weeks ago, so I can vouch for that: laws regarding service animals on planes have not yet changed. The DOT says they will not issue final new regulations until they have reviewed public comments.

All that said, given DOT’s current enforcement priorities, you might want to check on your specific airline’s policies before you fly. Think about keeping your animal’s health record with you when you’re taking a plane anywhere: it is sometimes difficult to determine if a specific airline will ask you to show it, so may as well be prepared.

While at the Seeing Eye training with my new dog, a woman in a dorm room across the hall introduced herself to me as Katherine Schneider. The name sounded familiar. Guess what? She’s the very Katherine Schneider who funds the Schneider Journalism Award for Excellence in Reporting on Disability. Here from the American Media Institute web site:

The Schneider Award is the first national journalism contest devoted exclusively to disability coverage. It is administered by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, under a grant from Katherine Schneider, a retired clinical psychologist who also supports the Schneider Family Book Award. That award is administered by the American Library Association and honors the best children’s book each year that captures the disability experience for children and adolescents.

Pretty cool, eh? Katherine was born blind, and at dinner last night she told me the winners of the Schneider Family Children’s Book Award will be announced in a few weeks. I’ll publish a post announcing those winners when that announcement is made.

Winners of the Katherine Schneider Journalism Award have already been announced, and Katherine told me the work for the committee choosing those award winners gets harder every year. “This year they reviewed over a hundred pieces of journalism from all over the world,” she said. Judges for the journalism award make their decisions by considering how well submissions:

• Explore and illuminate key legal or judicial issues regarding the treatment of people with disabilities
• Explore and illuminate government policies and practices regarding disabilities
• Explore and illuminate practices of private companies and organizations regarding disabilities
• Go beyond the ordinary in conveying the challenges experienced by people living with disabilities and strategies for meeting these challenges
• Offer balanced accounts of key points of controversy in the field and provide useful information to the general public

Special consideration is given to entries that are accessible to those with disabilities (for example, broadcast pieces that are available in transcript form and text stories that are accessible to screen readers.)

For 2019, first place in the large media market category was awarded to Right to Fail, Living Apart, Coming Undone an in-depth investigation by ProPublica and PBS Frontline in collaboration with The New York Times. First place in the small media market category was awarded to You’re Not Alone, a collaborative documentary between the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Milwaukee PBS that followed the lives of four young people from Wisconsin as they navigated mental health challenges — the final product included a suicide prevention toolkit at jsonline.com/yourenotalone. Second and third-place awards went to Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, Radiolab, The Post and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina,
and Searchlight New Mexico. Judges also awarded honorable mentions to The Arizona Republic as well as the Texas Tribune.

Visit Katherine Schneider’s blog, Kathie Comments, to learn more about Dr. Schneider, the Schneider award for journalism, and the Schneider Award for children’s books. What can I say? I always meet amazing people during my stays at The Seeing Eye, and getting to know Katherine has been a real privilege. I’d say more, but it’s time to head outside with our new dogs. Today’s a solo route!

Earlier this month, we published a post I wrote about flying to the Seeing Eye School in New Jersey to spend three weeks training with a new Seeing Eye dog. I’m very happy to report I made it safely to Newark International Airport, caught my ride from there to Morristown and have already been matched with a sweet one-and-a-half-year-old female Black Labrador Retriever. Well then, you ask, how’s life at the Seeing Eye? Here’s an account of how a typical morning goes here — this all happened last Friday:

• • 5:30 a.m. Music comes through intercoms to wake us up. The day before we were matched with our dogs it was Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.” This morning it was The Cure’s “Friday I’m in Love.” Every day, a different song to wake us up.

• • 5:35 Dress up warm, then out to the courtyard for “park time.” Twenty blind people circle their dogs around them, all urging our dog to empty. Trainers are with us and call out to let us know when we’ve had success: “#1 for Dilbert!” and Dilbert’s owner whoops it up to encourage him to always go on command. “Harry has a #2!” And his owner squeals with delight. Today was a red letter day, my dog did her #1 AND #2 fairly quickly: once they do both you can have them lead you back into the building (and warmth!) using the “inside!” command.

• • 5:45 Enter room, command your dog to “Go to your place.” Her “place” is her crate, and you leave your dog in her crate while you dish out one-and-a-half cups dry dog food from the tightly-closed bin on the floor near our dorm room door.

• • Zip open crate, say and repeat the word “rest” as you place the dish in front of her. Keep saying “rest” until you stand up, clap your hands and happily call out, “Take it!” Your dog must stay in the crate by the bedpost until you say those magic words. If they go after the food before those magic words, you pick up the food and go through the entire routine again–she can’t have her food until she stays in her place.

• • 5:50 Your dog inhales her food, then you “heel” her to the bathroom (heel as in walk with leash, but no harness), measure out two cups of water, she drinks what she wants, and you empty
    

    The dogs work hard even before they meet their human companions. Here, a trainer teaches a dog how to lead around common obstacles.

    out any water she didn’t drink. She only gets water when you give it to her, part of the “bonding.” She better follow my commands and keep me safe so that she can have water!

• • 5:57 Clean out empty bowls with a little squeegee thing they gave us to do so, put bowls back on their shelf (above toilet) in bathroom.

• • 6:05 a.m.: I don’t know what others do, but I make myself a cup of instant coffee using this groovy collapsible “hot pot” my husband bought me for my birthday last month.

• • 6:15 Check email.

• • 6:30 Shower.

• • 6:45 Call “6368” on desk phone to hear what the menu for today is, check blood sugar and take appropriate insulin to cover breakfast.

• • 6:55 Announcement over intercom “first floor ladies, head down to the dining room” or “men from upstairs, start heading to breakfast.” We all parade down to the dining room, our dogs leading the way.

• • 7:00 Each student has an assigned seat in the dining room, we give dogs a series of commands to go “left” “forward” or “right” to get to our seat and praise them when they achieve their goal.

• • 7:15 Breakfast. The dining room is lovely, white tablecloths and all. Waiters and waitresses come to get our orders so the dogs will know how to act in a restaurant.

• • 8:00 Off in vans to training center in downtown Morristown.

• • 8:15 Today we are practicing our “solo” route. We’ve been practicing a route around Morristown for the past couple days. The route includes T-intersections, four-way stoplights, a two-way stop sign, talking walk signals, left turns, two right turns. Our “solo trip” is Sunday, and during the solo the trainer is still behind us, but quite a distance.

Uh-oh. Announcement over intercom just sounded: time to head to the vans to downtown Morristown. It’s not even 8:00 a.m. yet!