Schnauzer Sam sounds the alarm

A Christchurch dog has been trained to provide essential medical help to its owner.

Pip Farrant, the owner of Sam the miniature schnauzer, has kidney failure and needs at least nine hours of dialysis a day.

To allow her to continue her job as a needs assessor at Princess Margaret Hospital, Farrant gets her dialysis while she sleeps.

But she is profoundly deaf and cannot hear the alarm that goes off when she rolls over in bed and crushes a tube in the dialysis process.

Farrant and her dialysis nurse, Lesley Harsburgh, decided to train one-year-old Sam to jump on to the bed and wake his owner when the alarm sounded. MORE>>

The most basic training technique... great to see people using their initiative in getting dogs to work!