The 10-year-old border collie has been trained to alert Mr Silvester, who suffers from type two diabetes, when his blood sugar is low.

“He smells my breath if my blood sugar gets too low and he barks and carries on and goes and gets Bev and then I know to have some jelly beans,” Mr Silvester said.

Benni allows Mr Silvester to maintain his independence and has given him and partner Bev Woodford confidence to travel and go on long walks together.

“When you’re at a level of about four, you start to get low and at about 3.8 I start fitting and falling down and doing all sorts of things so Benni gives me plenty of warning that ‘hey something’s wrong with you’ and I grab the jelly beans, throw about six or seven of them down and do a test and work out what I need to do to get the blood sugar back up,” he said.

Mr Silvester said Benni travelled everywhere with the couple and loved boats.

He was trained in a short period of time and also reacts to key words.

“We met this guy at a party and he said ‘I can train your dog to do that’ and we gave him to him for a weekend, followed it up and we did the rest,” Mr Silvester said.

“Border collies are super intelligent, you can train them to do anything.”

Mr Silvester said Benni had alerted him his blood sugar level was low on at least three occasions.

The warnings came as a surprise, but proved correct.

“The three times he’s identified I’ve looked at him and wondered ‘what are you doing?’ Then I’ve had some jelly beans and done a test and he’s been right,” Mr Silvester said.

He said Benni’s presence was a safeguard and provided peace of mind to the couple. “Bev’s gone off to have an appointment here in Warrnambool, so the boys are here fishing,” Mr Silvester said.

“She knows Benni will look after me.

“If I happen to have a hypo here I won’t start fitting and fall in the water and drown.”

Mr Silvester and Ms Woodford are staying Hamilton and are planning to travel around Australia.

“Benni comes everywhere with us,” he said.

“He’s a great dog to have around."