News

Demarco's best friend has a special job to do

SEP 4, 2007

By Kerryn Anker

Six-year-old Demarco Merrett has type one diabetes and doesn't understand why his assistant dog, Chino the whippet, keeps getting into trouble with shopping centre management.

Chino is so important to Demarco that he could save the youngster's life.

Demarco's mum Kate Hannant is struggling to find answers to her son's questions, feeling her son is being discriminated against.

With typo one diabetes since the age of one, Kate was terrified by her son's frequent hypoglycaemic attacks.  "About seven months ago things got very serious with Demarco's attacks," she said.  "Demarco's condition can be life-threatening and I needed some extra support.  He could no longer go to school and needed home schooling because of the frequency of his attacks."

Looking on the internet for organisations that cater for patients with diabetes, Kate came across Paws for Diabetics.

"I couldn't bare to see my con deal with these attacks anymore so I decided that Paws for Diabetics was our answer," she said. "The organisation offers assistant dogs for sufferers who can tell when a diabetic's sugar levels are low.  Chino either barks or cries when he knows this is happening.  Without Chino many outcomes would have been very different for Demarco, even fatal."

With Chino being a whippet, Kate has found that a few people in the community are unaware and uneducated to his importance.

"Chino has a jacket which lets people know he is a learning assistant dog, but still people have made our trips to the shopping centre difficult," she said.  "People seem to think that an assistance dog must be a Labrador, not a whippet.  For this reason we have been approached by security on various outings who say we are not allowed to have the dog in a shopping centre.  Because there isn't enough awareness about this, we also have the problem of people comming up and patting the dog.  For Chino to do his job and monitor Demarco's blood sugar levels, he must be concentrating on his scent alone.  When other people come in contact with him, it distracts his concentration."

Two weeks ago, Kate and Demarco were stopped by security at Clifford Gardens Shopping Centre who asked why the dog was in the centre.  After showing identification, Kate was told by the security that the centre management were going to talk to their solicitors about the issue.

Secretary for Paws for Diabetics Liz Yarker said Demarco has every right to have the dog with him.  "People need to be aware that assistance dogs come in a variety of breeds, not just Labradors," she said.  "It's horrible that this little six-year-old has to go through all this, feeling on the outer.  He has every right to have the dog with him."

Centre manager for Clifford Gardens Judy Ernst said the centre had no issue with the dog being there, but just wanted some more information.  "With all the changes in legislation as well as keeping out customers informed, we needed to find out everything about the assistant dog." she said.  "We have passed on information to our in-house legal team, but that is so we are provided with the right information to understand 100% about this issue and provide that same information to other customers."

Source: The Toowoomba Chronicle

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