Diabetic pets

Jeana Frost and I spent some time thinking about diabetes education. During those years of research, my dog, Lizzie, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. She lived five years longer than vets imagined, mostly due to a whole lot of care from her parents. We used to check her glucose with urine strips since getting blood from a dog ain't easy. More so, there's some thoughts that blood meters designed for humans don't give accurate results for our canine pals.

Enter two meters designed especially for pets. Abbott Laboratories recently released AlphaTRAK and Animal Diabetes Management also sells a glucometer to meet pet needs. Interesting to see that these products introduce new forms of measurements to make pet glucose readings more accurate. Would love to try these with Lizzie, but we're a day away from the 1st anniversary of her passing.

Doesn't seem to have anything to do with technology and learning at first glance, but Lizzie taught me more about diabetes than any human. Her diet and exercise routines were carefully managed, and we did our best to monitor her glucose levels with urine testing (luckily she was a girl...easy to throw a paper plate underneath her when she peed...don't have advice on collecting piss from male dogs hiking their legs). Wonderful to see medical researchers addressing pet diabetes with new technologies/products.

If you have diabetic pets and want some advice, we got a lot of knowledge to share. Drop a line...Princess Lizzie would expect us to share what we know about dealing with animal diabetes.