By Genevieve Rajewski
May 23, 2019
When Olaf, a four-year-old Siberian husky, was diagnosed with diabetes in February, there wasn’t anything his owners, Gina and Brian Dacey, wouldn’t do to help him. “We’ve had him since he was a few weeks old, and he’s really still just a baby,” Gina Dacey said.
Pets with diabetes cannot properly use glucose—a type of sugar found in the blood and the main source of energy for all the body’s cells. Glucose levels are primarily controlled by a hormone called insulin, which in pets with diabetes is either not produced or is insufficient for healthy living. Diabetic animals, just like many humans with the condition, must receive carefully timed daily injections of insulin to avoid developing life-threatening complications from their disease.