Service Dogs Saving Lives Everywhere

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)- Donny Mott has type one diabetes. He’s had a service dog for seven years.

His dog, Hawk, was trained from birth to recognize how his soon to be owner would smell.

“Whenever I would have a low blood sugar I would do a blood pressure and put a little blood on a cotton swab,” said Mott. “I would freeze it in our freezer overnight and then I would overnight it to the trainer and they would use that to train him to my scent.”

Hawk has saved his life more than once. One day his blood sugar dropped and left Mott surrounded by emergency medical technicians. Had it not been for Hawk, things could have taken a tragic turn.

“When I had fallen asleep, I had gone into a deep low,” said Mott. “And my wife heard Hawk barking from the other room so she got up out of bed and came and checked and he had his paws up on the arm of the chair and he was bouncing off of my arm trying to wake me up.”

Service dogs are trained to help people with all sorts of medical needs, like anxiety, stress or in Austin Marshall’s case vision loss.

Marshall says he has been able to interact with people in a new way since gaining his furry friend.

“I was able to walk on these curvy sidewalks and hold a face-to-face conversation with her as I’m walking and I had never been able to do that before because I was always having to look around and looked down to make sure I don’t trip or anything like that,” said Marshall.

George H. W. Bush’s death has brought up speculation and conversations about service dogs.

Some people believe his dog Sully never had a genuine relationship with the president because he was only with him for six months.

But Marshall says his bond with his dog was an instant connection.

“I’d developed a bond with Bentley within a week,” said Marshall. “You know and there was a point in our training where we were assessing you know switching dogs, that it might not have been a good match, and I remember going back to my room and just being devastated because I’m like they’re going to take him away.”