Empower Toby to Protect Our Diabetic Son

Help Train Toby to Be a Lifesaving Diabetic Alert Dog for Our Son

Hi everyone,

We’re reaching out as a family with a special request close to our hearts. Two years ago our son, Weston was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, a life-altering condition that requires constant vigilance to keep him safe and healthy. Despite his courage and resilience, managing diabetes 24/7 is a tremendous challenge—especially for a child.

That’s where Toby comes in. Toby is our sweet, smart puppy, and he’s already become a loving part of our family. More importantly, Toby has the potential to be so much more than a companion—he can be a lifesaving Diabetic Alert Dog.

These incredible service animals are trained to detect dangerous lows in blood sugar levels—even before devices like CGMs and pumps can. With the proper training, Toby will be able to alert us (and our son) when levels drop, even while he's sleeping. This kind of early detection can prevent emergencies and provide peace of mind we can’t put a price on.

Unfortunately, training a diabetic alert dog is incredibly costly—and it's something that insurance rarely covers. Toby’s professional training program comes with a $20,000 price tag. We recently dropped Toby off at River’s Edge Dog Academy in College Station, where he’ll spend the next year undergoing intensive training to become fully certified as Weston’s alert dog.

We’re doing everything we can as parents to support our son in living a full, healthy life. Toby is part of that hope—and with your help, we can give him the training he needs to help protect our boy, day and night.

Any donation, no matter how small, will bring us closer to our goal. If you’re not able to give, sharing this campaign means the world to us too.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for being a part of this journey.

With love and gratitude,

Scott and Meredith Gotcher

(and a tail wag from Toby!)