Australian Lions has been training hearing assistance dogs for 43 years, pairing more than 690 dogs with hearing-impaired people over that time.
More recently, they have branched out to train medical alert dogs for people living with type 1 diabetes, a chronic condition that affects more than 120,000 Australians and over 8 million people worldwide.
Laura Harris is a project co-ordinator and trainer with Australian Lions Hearing Dogs, and Eliza Bartlett is an Adelaide nurse and type 1 diabetic, who took delivery of Sal, a miniature labradoodle, 18 months ago.
In this podcast we learn about how the dogs are trained to help people manage their diabetes (a potentially life-threatening condition ), who is eligible to be paired with a dog, and the extraordinary difference they make to people's lives.