No.1 awesome way to how to train a migraine alert dog ?

how to train a migraine alert dog

Service dogs have proven to be effective and one of the best helping hand for people who suffer from specific physical or mental disabilities. These dogs have been provided with specialized training to perform those tasks that are difficult for their owner or master to perform. 


Migraine Alert Dog

Different types of service dogs are trained to perform specific tasks and provide a special kind of service. For example, guide dogs, mobility assistance dogs, seizure resistance dogs, migraine alert dogs, and there are different techniques on how to train each of them, like a method of How to train a migraine alert dog will be different from others.


In this particular article, we will discuss, what is a migraine alert dog, how do they help Migraine patients, and how to train a migraine alert dog.

What is Migraine?

Migraine is one of the dangerous and most common Headache Disorders in which the patient can suffer from moderate to severe headaches with additional problems like nausea, intense sensitivity to light, vomiting, etc. 

Migraine attacks can occur at any time to the patient and can last for several minutes or even several hours, leaving the patient in intense pain and suffering.

This disorder can start at any age, but mostly it starts showing its symptoms in early childhood.

Cure of Migraine

There are several medications to cure the pain from which the patient is suffering. Still, overuse of drugs can cause problems of their own, like headaches from overuse of medicines like painkillers. 

Symptoms of Migraine

Before the Migraine attack, the patient suffers from several symptoms, which can last for several hours. These symptoms can alert the patient before any severe migraine attack. Some of them are:

  • Vision disturbances.
  • Sudden sensitivity to light.
  • Extreme fatigue.
  • Aura phase
  • Light headache

How do dogs help patients suffering from a disease?

Dogs have a thousand times stronger smelling sense than humans and have hypersensitive perception powers. With these perceptions and smelling capabilities, a god can feel something suspicious in your body even before you start to notice it.
  • They can detect when you are happy or sad by smelling the hormonal imbalances in your body. In the same way, before any migraine attack, they can identify if anything is wrong inside your body and alert the patient before he/she starts feeling the symptoms and suffer in pain.

How does a Migraine alert dog help?

  • A migraine alert dog can smell the hormonal imbalances and detect migraine symptoms generating inside the patient and alert the patient before suffering from them.
  • When a migraine alert dog detects that something is suspicious, he will try to seek the patient’s attention to alert the patient about the events that are going to happen.
  • There are several ways in which the dog will behave unusually than normal; some of them are:
  • Moving around the patient in circles continuously.
  • Suddenly try to smell and lick the patient because he feels something suspicious.
  • Barking loudly and continuously
  • Staring at the patient or sticking closer to him/her and not in the usual way.

Things to Consider Before training the dog

training a migraine alert dog
Certain things one must be keeping in mind before starting the training of the dog to make him a Migraine alert dog.
  • The dog must have a perfect medical condition and must not be suffering from any allergy or disease.
  • The dog must have a perfect sense of smell, and his smelling sense must be healthy. You can check by giving him samples of material and then hiding them away somewhere, and if he finds them, his senses are subtle then.
  • The patient and the dog must have a strong bond and a good relationship for the dog to understand how the patient usually smells and how it is different before the migraine attack period starts.
  • Think of a creative alert for your dog whenever he smells something related to migraines in your body.
  • There are several ways that you can teach the dog to alert when he feels something is not right like, pawing the patient, some sort of weird movement which dog does not normally do.

Best answer on How to train a Migraine alert dog?

army_service_dog image
There is a unique way of teaching the dog to detect any Migraine related problems before the patient and alert the patient. This process can be broken down into smaller steps, as follows:
  • Whenever the patient is suffering from Migraine pain, he/she should take a cotton take cotton balls and make saliva swabs with it.
  • Take those saliva swabs and pack them inside an airtight container and freeze them.
  • Name those airtight containers with a description of the pain or stage like the degree of pain, any specific symptom, Pre-Migraine symptoms, aura stage, etc.
  • Make the dog smell them and teach him how to alert to those smells.
  • Make a creative alert for your dog to do when he smells them. An alarm can be like a weird movement which the dog doesn’t usually do but should be comfortable and compact enough that it can be done by the dog anywhere.
  • You can teach him to do the alert by enacting the alarm first like, smelling the sample then doing the alarm. The dog will repeat after you, and after repetitions and daily training, the dog will do the same when he senses that smell in you before any migraine attack.
  • When the dog starts reacting and alerting to the smell of migraine saliva swabs, make him smell some new cotton swabs, it can be as a test so that in future, the dog doesn’t give a false positive alarm.
  • Give the dog a treat whenever he alerts you after smelling the Migraine saliva swabs and don’t give him a gift if he reacts to the blank ones. This practice will make the alert more accurate.

Duration of Training

  • The time required to train a Migraine alert dog entirely can vary from 1-2 years. If a dog is taught every day for at least 1-1.5 hours, then it can take about two years or so. 

There are few things that the patient must keep in mind concerning the migraine alert dog.

  • *The dog can be wrong sometimes, or the symptoms can be something else that the dog smells. 
  • *Do not distrust the dog if he gives false signals sometimes and especially does not abuse or hurt the dog during or after training.
  • *If the dog’s medical condition is not right, do not consider it for training as it can be dangerous for both the dog and the patient.
  • *Do not force the dog for training.
  • *Keep an eye on the dog for the alert, and the patient should not ignore the warnings and signals given by the migraine alert dog because all those painful and insufferable events can be avoided if they responded to the symptoms at the right time.
  • Migraine alert Dogs are very beneficial and a lifesaver for patients suffering from a severe headache disorder like Migraine, in which the pain and suffering are unbearable. Migraine Alert dogs not only can detect migraine symptoms, but they get trained to alert many hormonal imbalances occurring inside the body and can alert the patient for them also.

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