But puppies could soon have an even greater significance for Eliza than just their ability to put her in a good mood.

She was diagnosed with type-1 diabetes last year after a series of health scares including muscle breakdown, rapid vision and weight loss.

After the two weeks in hospital, Eliza’s life became a constant series of blood sugar readings, controlled eating and insulin injections – a tough ask for a young girl.

She also has to be woken up at 2am every night to check her insulin levels, a draining task for herself and her mum Nicole.

While in hospital, the Kennington Primary School student was visited by two Righteous Pups trainers who spoke about a program training puppies to detect low blood-sugar levels in diabetic children.

Eliza thought it sounded brilliant and turned to speak to her mum.

“I want to raise the money for Righteous Pups to start a program to help kids just like me,” she said.

The trainers had returned from a visit to the United States to see the world-renowned program at Dogs4Diabetics.

They were excited to see the dogs’ work first hand, but the funding required to get training off the ground in Bendigo proved to be a barrier, particularly given the demand for Righteous Pups’ autism assistance dogs.

Yet should Eliza achieve her fundraising goals – set at $5000 each for the 18 participants in her basketball team – there could be enough funding to get the diabetes support dog program off the ground in Bendigo.

Righteous Pups operations manager Jenny Atkins said training dogs to detect low blood-sugar levels could make the lives of diabetic children and their families much easier.

“You find children often become resistant after having treatment for a while, and might think they’re OK when in reality, they could be at a dangerous level,” she said.

“The dogs would make sure that isn’t an issue by alerting parents.”

For Eliza, living with an autism assistance dog for another family member has shown her the value of a little puppy love.

Now she can’t wait for some support of her own.

“The doggies don’t care about anything except us,” she said.

“They’re very, very special.”

The Bendigo Braves are used to tough opposition on the basketball court, but they will face an opponent of a different kind in March next year.

A group of 18 business people will pit their skills against our basketball stars to raise funds for Righteous Pups to help establish a program training dogs to detect low blood-sugar levels in diabetic children.

Their team will be known as “Eliza’s Heroes”, playing on behalf of eight-year-old Eliza Wallace.

Each of the business participants will try to raise $5000 to take part.

The match will be on Saturday, March 19 at Bendigo Stadium.

The business people will be busy raising funds in the lead-up to the event, contact 0413 416 247 to help out.