Imprinting Our Second Litter of Possible Diabetic Alert Puppies!

Nearly a decade ago, Project 2 Heal began working with Samantha Pressley (now a longtime volunteer and recently our new Social Media Intern) to imprint a litter of puppies so that one could be trained to become Samantha's diabetic alert dog. Early on, it became clear that there was one puppy in the litter that seemed especially up to the task... a black female puppy Samantha would name Moonpie!

9 years later, Samantha and her fully trained diabetic alert dog Moonpie are totally inseparable.

After nearly a decade of working as Samantha's diabetic alert dog, Moonpie is retiring from her role as a working dog. Samantha is currently working to imprint our girl Josie's beautiful litter of puppies, from which she'll choose a puppy most suited to become her next diabetic alert dog.

(Although, Samantha will tell you that it's really the puppy that chooses her!)

The Process of Imprinting a Litter of Puppies:

So, how does a diabetic alert dog detect dangerous changes in blood sugar? It all starts with the imprinting process, which exposes a litter of puppies to the scents of high and low blood sugar while still breast-feeding with its mother! Gradually, puppies are then trained to associate these scents with rewards—like food!—and eventually to perform specific behaviors when the smells are detected.

As fully trained diabetic alert dogs, these behaviors indicate that their handler's blood sugar is either high or low. (Sometimes even alerting the person before a glucometer does!)