Issue Date: December 30, 2001

Amazingly, some dogs can alert owners who are about to have a seizure. Others can relieve pain better than drugs. Now, can scientists discover how they do it?

By Steve Dale

A PASSER-BY CAN'T TELL that Donna Jacobs had a stroke in 1994, but it left her an epileptic. Now Patra, her 5-year-old Rottweiler/shepherd mix, lets Jacobs know when she's about to have a seizure by pawing her. "I turned into a recluse until Patra came along," says Jacobs, 49, of Lohman, Mo. Four years ago, she returned to the workplace -- with Patra -- as a marketing director for a computer company. Now Jacobs runs a non-profit called Service Dogs Today. "I'm not the same person I was before the stroke," Jacobs says. "It was important for me to find a new identity since the old me was gone forever."

Flash, Carol Lea Benjamin's border collie, is a service dog who eases the pain of her "invisible disability," Crohn's disease.

Joel Davis, a Los Angeles writer, did not know dogs can detect seizures. "Alex trained me to understand," he says. When Alex was a pup, Davis had a seizure on a street and fell to the sidewalk. Alex stayed at Davis' side, licking his face till he regained consciousness. The dog ultimately learned to alert Davis to coming seizures. He points past his own 200-pound frame to Alex, a wiggly 10-pound miniature dachshund. You would never guess this little dog has such a big job. Little Alex, who is 5, alerts Davis, 48, by licking his face or even pulling him to a safe spot to sit and take his medication. "It's like an ant moving a mountain," Davis says, laughing. He has recounted his experiences in a book, With Alex by My Side.

Davis and Jacobs say their respective service (or assistance) dogs are far better at predicting seizures than economists are at predicting the stock market: Their dogs' records are perfect.

Carol Lea Benjamin's border collie, Flash, goes everywhere with her -- into restaurants, to the movies, to the bank and even on airplanes. Benjamin's vision is just fine, although some people assume she is blind. Nor is she in a wheelchair. "So, why the heck do you have a service dog?" is the question she answers on an almost daily basis.

Benjamin has Crohn's disease, a chronic intestinal disorder. In 1990, she adopted a mixed breed named Dexter. "When I'd lie with him against my gut, my pain would go away," she says.

Benjamin understood better than most the vast talents of service dogs such as "seeing-eye dogs" and those that help people in wheelchairs pick up objects and maneuver. After all, she was a dog trainer and wrote many training books (Dog Training in 10 Minutes and Mother Knows Best: The Natural Way to Train Your Dog), until her career shifted to writing mysteries (The Long Good Boy).

The more Dexter accompanied Benjamin, the better she felt. "The side effects from the medications were worse than the disease," she says. Dexter has retired, but Benjamin now arguably spends more time with 6-year-old Flash than with her husband. "Flash is the only drug I need," she says.

Thanks to the Americans With Disabilities Act, service dogs are allowed almost anywhere their people are. "Whether or not you can actually see a person's disability isn't the issue," says Tamara Whitehall, program coordinator at Delta Society, a Renton, Wash., non-profit group that educates the public about service dogs through the National Service Dog Center.

It's not required by law, but Kay Yeager, a 56-year-old retired nurse from Jefferson City, Mo., carries a laminated copy of the Americans With Disabilities Act, and her dog, Spike, wears a service dog vest. No matter -- they're often denied access to places such as restaurants and motels because her disabilities are invisible.

Spike, an 11-year-old cocker spaniel, alerts Yeager to coming flare-ups of fibromyalgia, a muscle disorder. Before 1997, she was hospitalized or intensively treated for clinical depression more times than she can count. Since Spike began accompanying Yeager full time that year, she has not had a severe bout of depression.

Mary Lee Nitschke, a psychology professor at Linfield College in Portland, Ore., has a special interest in service dogs and health. She concedes that these dogs could have a placebo effect: If you think a dog will help, then it will help. "If we're talking about someone with chronic pain being able to live without meds, I don't give a hoot if it's the placebo effect," she says. "But I suspect something more is going on, something science doesn't yet understand."

Can simply petting a dog work on brain chemistry like popping Prozac? And how do dogs detect seizures with such accuracy or alleviate chronic pain -- or at least seem to do so? "Interestingly, the question today isn't so much 'Can dogs do all this?' as it is 'How do dogs do this?' " says Greg Ogilvie, head of medical oncology at Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine in Fort Collins. The latest research on what, exactly, these dogs are doing will be revealed at February's Western Veterinary Conference in Las Vegas. "The goal is to separate the warm-and-fuzzy stories from hard science," Ogilvie says.

The research presented will come from a teaming of veterinary professionals with the human medical community.

Experts concur it all has something to with the dog's nose. But just what is Fido sniffing?

It also seems clear not all dogs have equal talent. Ogilvie says he recently treated a bloodhound who immediately found a pinhead-sized spot of blood on a medical gown that Ogilvie thought had been cleaned thoroughly. But he says his own mixed-breed dog can barely find his own dog biscuits. The breed of dog may play a role, but it's most likely an individual skill.

"It's like playing the piano: Some of us have an aptitude and some don't," Nitschke says. "Let's say you have the aptitude. What good is that if you don't have a piano? A dog may have the skill to predict seizures, but how would you ever find out if you don't have seizures? Also, just like kids are encouraged to 'practice their scales,' these dogs do far better if they're encouraged." W

Steve Dale is a special correspondent for Dog World and writes a syndicated newspaper column, "My Pet World." He hosts Pet Central at WGN Radio and Animal Planet Radio.

Patra, a Rottweiler/shepherd mix, warns Donna Jacobs of seizures by pawing her. Jacobs runs the non-profit group Service Dogs Today.