Hi All:

I've not written in a while but had something happen yesterday that I wanted to bounch off of you. (To recap my situation: Have a 7 year old boy with SEVERE PA)....Had an incident happen at school yesterday which had me talking with a "dog lover"....she said if they have bomb and drug sniffing dogs, why can't we get dogs to aid our children in sniffing out peanuts and peanutbutter? To me, having a dog by my son's side would make him feel more confident and assist in a situation where a child has eaten peanutbutter and my child is approaching him. (FYI -- my son cannot even smell peanutbutter without getting itchy eyed and my leave the area immediately upon smelling or will have reaction.) Any ideas? What are your thoughts. To me this seems so simple. It shouldn't cost nearly what bomb dogs cost in that PB is such a definite smell and dogs love it. It should be easy to train a dog and probably a good obidience class trainer could do it.

On Nov 14, 2000

I think it's a great idea. They have dogs that can sense when someone is going to have a seizure. I'm sure smelling peanutbutter would be easy. The only thing I wonder is if it would be so prevalent that the dog would be going nuts smelling it everywhere. Definitely something to look into. I have no idea where you would find out about such a thing. I don't think you could just have a dog trainer do it. I think it would have to be some kind of "official" working dog for the dog to be allowed into school and public places.

On Nov 15, 2000

I would imagine that if your son is that sensitive then the smallest amount ingested would harm him, and I wonder if dogs would be able to smell the tiniest amount of contamination in, say, a chocolate bar or something. I think it sounds good, if it could work.

On Nov 15, 2000

I guess this might work. Just two thoughts...others may be allergic to dogs...and some dog food and treats are made with peanuts, so a dog could cause a reaction if those feeding it were not careful.