Intro to River

Via email, I'm going through all the steps from accidental discovery my oldest girl could alert and narrowing down how, to picking and training the replacement once the old girl retired.

I taught River to identify seizure by scent. Very close to the work you're doing now, except we based it on strength.

1. I started by going off my meds under my doctor's supervision and collected sweat after each seizure, then aging the cotton ball by letting it air for X hours. (1 hour, 30 minutes, 15 minutes, not at all)

2. Then we taught the recognition of scent and when she smells sample A (immediate) to bark. I can be in a near seizure state and not realize it. The bark is enough to snap me to long enough to sit down or pull over, etc.

3. Then we taught different behaviors for different strengths, which was tricky. But with shaping it worked. Within 2 weeks she had the hang of it and we worked on discrimination and degree.

In between sessions, the cotton balls were kept in sterilized, clean glass screw top containers.