by Service dogs are a lifeline for people with medical conditions such as seizures. For Janaye, her dog, Colt, protects her from very serious danger. Janaye has violent seizures due to a heart condition and can have black outs (syncope) at any time that could lead her to fall and hit her head. But if she does hit her head, could kill her.
“Because I have a TBI [~ed. traumatic brain injury] it is very dangerous for me to hit my head, I can literally die if I hit my head really bad again,” writes Jayane. As such, she has trained Colt to block her head during a seizure, should she collapse to the ground. In the following video, Janaye is training Colt to block her head during a seizure.
“This is only a reenactment, this is NOT a real seizure. And no of course I’m not really hitting my head in this video,” she writes. “This is just us keeping up with his training, I have to test him on everything that he knows often to make sure he still does it all reliably. He is trained to do this in a certain way that keeps both him and me safe….”
Janaye explains she has to keep up with Colt’s training, as she may not be conscious during an episode. The Weimaraner/English Labrador cross has also learned to sense and alert Janaye before she has a seizure so that she has time to either take her medications or go and lie down. He also helps keep an eye on her during a seizure.
Training isn’t without it’s funny moments, as Janaye points out. “The middle video is basically a blooper, I laughed so hard, the floor was super slippery and he had a hard time getting his body under my 10lb head. The important thing that makes me super proud is that he never stops trying. He always looks back to make sure I am safe and keeps trying till I am. I am so blessed to have him. He has saved my life in many ways.”
Service dogs are truly a lifeline to their humans. Share this video with your friends if you agree!
If you want to see more of Colt in action, you can watch how he responds when Jayane has a seizure in the interesting video here.
