This Chihuahua Saves Life Of Owner Six Times
I love to share inspiring stories of Chihuahuas overcoming obstacles and those with a “happily ever after” ending. This one, however, is a story of a man’s “happily ever after” story thanks to a sweet little Chihuahua that saves a life, not surprisingly named Sugar. This Chihuahua saves life six times!
There are very few Chihuahuas that are honest to goodness registered service dogs. Meet Sugar, she has been trained and is registered as a service dog. By law, she can go anywhere her owner goes regardless of whether pets are “allowed” or not.
News from Yuma, Arizona
This is a news story that was posted on KYMA, Channel 11 news, Yuma, Arizona on December 22, 2017.
Meet Sugar the honest to goodness service dog Chihuahua
Sugar’s owner, Tony Rouhotas Sr. and his wife brought Sugar home simply because she wanted a lap dog. Mr. Rouhotas said that when his wife started training Sugar in obedience (Yeah! for her!) he fell in love with the dog. Before that, he said he “couldn’t stand Chihuahuas”. — another person won over to the wonderful world of Chihuahuas! —
Sugar the Chihuahua saves life six times as a service dog
It turns out that Sugar became much more than a lap dog. When she was three years old Mr. Rouhotas’ diabetes became life-threatening. That’s when his wife found a professional trainer and she was trained as a service dog.
Normally it takes two years for dogs to go through the training process. Sugar completed the training in 8 months! And some people say Chihuahuas are dumb. I guess Sugar proved those naysayers wrong!
Three weeks later she alerted for the first time. He explained how Sugar detects the different scent of a person’s skin and that alerts her that something is wrong. In this case, it is when her owner’s blood sugar levels become dangerously low.
Sugar on her owner’s lap
When Sugar detects a change in his scent she starts to profusely lick his face to wake him up, or if he is unconscious she knows to go get help. What happens is that when a person’s blood sugar levels get too low, the immune system kicks in. When all those things are going on internally, it changes the scent of a person’s skin. This is what Sugar detects.
Mr. Rouhotas says, “Sugar has literally saved my life six times and prevented me from going into a diabetic coma in the middle of the night”.
Mr. Rouhotas says that their grandson actually named their dog because she was the color of brown sugar. Little did they know how prophetic her name would become.
I’m so happy for that family and for Sugar who has a very important job, indeed.