Le Figaro Bordeaux
He is an ordinary hero, but on all fours and covered with chocolate-colored hair. Oggy, a four-and-a-half-year-old Labrador retriever, living in Talence (Gironde) with his 29-year-old mistress, has just been awarded a "hero dog trophy", during the awards ceremony of this event organized every two years by the association Centrale canine, in the category "dog detector of disease". A deserved trophy, because Oggy has more than once taken out his mistress, prone to epileptic seizures, complicated situations.
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One day, Oggy alerts her, but Stephanie doesn't have time to go home. So she went to safety in the lobby of a nearest doctor's office and the crisis came immediately. Oggy barked until someone came to his aid." Oggy's training, based on olfaction and odor discrimination, allows him to detect a seizure between 20 minutes and nine hours before it occurs. He warns his mistress by snuffing her on the thigh and barking, so that she can get to safety and avoid injury. "Since they have been in pairs, he has never failed to warn Stephanie.
»Centrale Canine recalls that 600,000 people suffer from epilepsy in France. The Handi'Chiens association trains dogs like Oggy, who "alert, support and secure their epileptic beneficiary before, during and after the crisis". Stephanie, the mistress of this Labrador like no other, confides that for two and a half years that he accompanies her, "Oggy has changed his life". Before being entrusted with this animal, "the young woman who has several epileptic seizures a month, was afraid to leave her home and no longer had any confidence in herself". Since then, "with Oggy by her side, she has regained a taste for life, emerged from her isolation and accepted her illness."
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"His flair never missed a crisis"
Concretely, dogs like Oggy are trained to react before, during and after an epileptic seizure. They will first alert their master to safety. During the seizure, the dog will then lie next to or on its owner in order to soothe him. Finally, after the crisis, the animal can pick up a phone or medication and help the person get up.
Since the presence of this faithful companion at her side, Stéphanie has been able to return to work. This AESH (accompanying students with disabilities) in a Gironde high school has a room where to get to safety when her crises occur. The room is equipped with a bell that Oggy knows how to operate in case of danger, so that a colleague can help his mistress. This symbolic award, which rewarded Oggy and 20 other dogs, aims to highlight "the beneficial role that Oggy plays on a daily basis with his flawless flair that has never missed a crisis".
Oggy has been accompanying Stephanie for two and a half years. Canine Central