Hayven Chase

Continuing the story of Hayven Chase, an exceptional Idaho high school senior who’s an FFA member and finalist in the High School Discussion Meet competition held by the Young Farmers & Ranchers of Idaho. She’s also up against a challenge. She was diagnosed at eight years old with Type 1 diabetes. Is there anything that can help her cope?

“My parents and me have always discussed about me having a service dog and the reason being is when I’m asleep at night I don’t wake up to my low blood sugars, which can be not a good thing,” said Hayven.

Some people with type 1 diabetes wake up on their own when their blood sugar levels get low, but Hayven doesn’t. Low blood sugar levels can cause seizures and in rare cases, even death.

For years her parents would keep on eye on her continuous blood glucose monitor when she was asleep.

“We’d actually take shifts to watch her blood sugars at night, so we kind of always felt like she would need a different failsafe,” said Roxanne.

 That’s where Scentinel comes in.

“Scentinel is trained to alert me to my low and high blood sugars. They haven’t been able to detect exactly what they smell, but the dogs smell it off of your breath,” saud Hayven.

“He can alert me 20 to 30 minutes before my continuous glucose monitor does, and having that extra time helps me get ahead of it. He’s actually helped prevent me from some critical lows. Which… every diabetic’s different but for me typically when my blood sugar goes low I crash really hard.”