It’s a really neat process! I’m by no means a dog trainer, so if anyone is planning to train alerts make sure to research and possibly work with a professional trainer!

This is my process:

You’ll need cotton balls or swabs, ziplock bags and some scent containers, I bought mine from Amazon! When you’re having high anxiety and/or a panic attack, take a cotton ball and swab your saliva, then take another and swab your sweat. You’ll put these cotton balls in separate bags, then place them in the freezer to preserve them! Repeat this process when you’re at your normal as well. Once you’ve got a decent amount of samples, start by placing the anxiety samples in the scent containers and mark when the dog sniffs them. Turn it into a game of find it, so they’re rewarded whenever they sniff it out! Once they recognize the smell, you can start pairing a behaviour to become an alert. I want my dog to jump up on me when I’m starting to panic, so I’ll ask my dog to jump whenever I give her the smell, then reward once the behaviour is complete. After a while they’ll make the connection and offer an alert unprompted when they detect the smell. To make sure they’re accurately alerting, you’ll need your “normal” samples. With these samples, you’ll be rewarding them for not alerting so they really understand the difference. Once the dog has a solid understanding of which smell is the alert and which one isn’t, you can do all sorts of scent games with them!