Local couple relocates diabetic-alert dog to Colorado

Philip and Shurie Scheel helped to relocate a diabetic-alert dog to a loving, home with Jet Warren in Highland Ranch, Co., a suburb of Denver.

Shurie said they adopted the dog - Timber - with the intent of retraining her and finding her a diabetic she could help.

"We thought she should be placed back in training," she said. "Timber is a very unique dog and you can tell that just from being around her. She's a pet and a really awesome pet, but she's also more than that. You can tell that just from being around her, you know that she's wasting her abilities just as a pet."

The Scheels had Timber for four months while they had her retrained and found her a loving family. The placement process was difficult, but they chose to give the dog to a 13-year-boy with Type1 Diabetes with low blood sugar named Jet Warren.

"Timber is five years old now, and a very calm dog which is a necessity in their family," Shurie explained. "The family has another little brother who is afraid of dogs and an adopted 9-year-old daughter from Bulgaria who is blind. They also have a two-year-old daughter as well. So, this family needed a dog that would understand all the nuisances of that. They needed a very specific dog and Timber was that dog."

Shurie also said the family had been looking for an alert dog but good ones are expensive, around $20,000 and cheap, uncertified alert dogs are around $5,000.

When given the opportunity to gift Timber, the Scheels paid for the retraining out of their own pocket. Jeremy Becker at Duty Dogs in Cody agreed to do the training for $1,000 instead of the normal price of $6,000 because he thought it was an amazing thing to do for someone - a really big gift. Philip said the training refreshed Timber's knowledge of when to trigger an alert for a diabetic.

"As a diabetic-alert dog, Timber would smell the change of someone's blood chemistry, whether the blood sugar is high or low," he said. "That's one of her triggers. Timber has five or six triggers because the triggers are situational - whether her person is sleeping or watching T.V. or listening to headphones. Timber is 200 percent better at telling if blood sugar is high or low than even blood tests."

Philip said the most important thing is that Timber's trigger is immediate.

"Having a service dog will help Jet to notice the change before he feels the symptoms," he said.

Shurie said Timber is currently with the Warren family, doing her job.