We’ve posted in the past that Luke has a sensitive nose, and that we’ve experienced times where he’s reacted when the kids were having low blood sugars. We’ve since been trying to work with Luke and the kids to help him train his nose. A favorite game of the kids (and the dog) is the give one of the kids a treat and have them hide. Luke is then given the task to find a specific kid. Luke has recently gotten pretty good at it and has been able to help us find mischievous toddlers that occasionally like to play hide and go seek with out letting us know first. So tonight we decided to give Luke a real challenge.

For the 4th our family went to the city park to watch fireworks and let the kids run around. We took some treats with us and then split up for a little bit making sure that Luke was distracted while the older boys went and played. The park was very crowded and there was numerous fireworks going off in the parking lot keeping Luke a little on edge. I have to admit that I was skeptical that our pooch would be up for a challenge like this let alone be willing to even respond to the command with all the extra smells and noises that were a part of the course. He responded. My wife gave Luke the command to find Mark. He immediately focused and worked his way through the crowd following the winding and confusing path that Mark, Ethan and I took to get to the other side of the park and in a short amount of time found Mark. I was amazed.

Though Luke has come along with some extra challenges, I find the benefit of having a disciplined animal with a keen senses and a real attachment to the  kids a true blessing, and I am less and less worried about him being able to help us with eventually being on alert at all times for low blood sugars.

Now if we can just get him to never have an accident in the house again… I might actually learn to love the thing.