Service Dog Archives - Page 8 of 34

My “Take Your Dog to Work Day” is a Little Different

June 21, 2013

The first Take Your Dog to Work Day was in 1999. We’ve come a long way, baby! 300 companies participated in that first year. Now, thousands of companies are having dogs at work today!

Rocky, labrador, service dog, service dog in-training

Rocky, the Original

I started taking a dog to work in 2001. Rocky, our first service dog in-training, came to work with me every day at the Federal office where my husband and I worked.

It wasn’t easy — I was dealing with the Federal government and a dog in the workplace. But after some help from a Federal attorney in Florida who took his service dog in training to work with him every day, the government finally allowed the service dog in training on campus every day. There was an initial flurry of interest, but pretty soon Rocky and I were a familiar sight and no one gave us another look.

That’s not entirely true. There was a particularly stressful time when our agency had to perform layoffs. Almost every employee was at risk, and our human resources (HR) department was stressed from the pressure of ending employee’s federal career. During that time, some of the HR employees would stop by my office “just to talk.” What they were really coming for was to love on the dog. After the entire process was complete, several months later, some of the HR folks expressed their gratitude that there was a dog around — just having the chance to pet a dog decreased their stress levels significantly, they said.

I eventually left my government career to start Smart Dog University. But not before I’d raised five service dogs in-training with the help of the Federal government. Our three permanent dogs: Lily, Tango, and Nemo were all service dogs in-training and all spent time on the government campus. (They were released from service work for either temperament or health issues and we got to keep them!)

Schooner in training at a local supermarket

Schooner and I “at work”

Now I work from home and every day is Take Your Dog to Work Day. Because I raise and train service dogs, sometimes my “work” involves public places like the doctor’s office, restaurants, libraries, concerts, office buildings, and shopping malls.

Some of the more interesting places I’ve been with the dogs:

dentist office
open air concert
hospital
movie theater (the original Harry Potter movie!)
celebration dinners
award ceremonies
political fundraisers
live shots on television news
graduation ceremonies
hospice
elementary and junior high schools
football games
speaking engagements
conferences
trains

Generally, the service dog in-training goes where I go. They need to learn how to handle many different situations and experiences before they are teamed with their human partner. We’d rather they get all the kinks out with us.

Does your workplace allow dogs? Just for today or on an ongoing basis?

Fixing Your Dog’s Problems

June 13, 2013

Schooner, the service dog in training, had his monthly check-in at the service dog organization and we ran into some interesting dog training problems. A couple of comments from blog readers appreciated my honesty in writing about the problems. Yes, even professional dog trainers have trouble.

I’m already working on Schooner’s issues and here’s our plan for improvement.

The Problems

Lack of focus. Schooner was easily distracted and lost focus very quickly at the training center and at the mall.
Not able to perform simple requests. I asked Schooner to do the simplest of tasks without success.
Sociability. Sociability isn’t really a problem, but when it gets in the way of training, it’s something that needs attention. Service dogs can’t wander around and say hello to anyone at anytime.
Pulling on leash. In the mall, Schooner dragged me around quite a bit. Because he’s going to be a balance dog, his loose leash walking needs to be perfect!

The Solutions

Short, fun training sessions. We’re going to go way back to the beginning with Schooner and train in short bursts. I’ll counteract his lack of focus with these short, rapid-fire, really exciting and fun sessions. As quickly as they start, the training sessions will be over. With Labradors, it was almost a punishment to end a training session. With Danes, it seems that the sooner a session ends, the faster the learning and the happier the dog.
Find highly motivating rewards. Schooner is a bit picky, spitting out chicken — what I usually consider to be a fairly high value treat. In today’s training session, I worked quickly and his reinforcer was a canned dog food. The canned is smellier, has a wet consistency, and is — according to Schooner — pretty high value! Over the next few weeks, I’ll be trying lots of different foods (sardines, salmon, different cheese, some mushy foods (cottage cheese, yogurt, peanut butter, etc.) and even some play. We hope to ramp up Schooner’s enthusiasm with these rewards.
Out and about. Letting Schooner “watch the world go by,” will hopefully help with his lack of focus. Sometimes, it just takes “getting bored” with a scenario before a dog can work well. We’ll be planning some outings to the local athletic fields on the weekend. I’ll take a book for me, a blanket for him, and we’ll just hang out. We’ll head to the downtown areas of some local towns for varied activities and sights. I think these repeated positive experiences will help Schooner begin to settle down and be ready to work.
Step by step. The ideas above will all help slow Schooner down so he can pay attention to my pace and match it — instead of me trying to slow him down. We’ll also work literally step by step. I’ll take a step, then click and treat when he takes a step. We’ll repeat that until he understands that one matching step to mine will earn him a click and treat. We’ll then add another step to the sequence — so it’ll be two steps, then click and treat — and so on.
Deep, not broad. I’d been trying to introduce a lot of things to Schooner — from the basics (and there are a lot of basics!), to more advanced training tasks like pivots — and I think it was too much. He wasn’t able to master any of them, and when asked to perform even the simplest ones, he was unable. So instead of teaching many things, we’re going to focus on just a few. But those few will be taught to fluency, meaning: he’ll be able to do them anywhere anytime.

While this post is about Schooner, the service dog in training, it could just as easily be about your dog — many of my clients experience the same thing I did with Schooner. And this is exactly how I’d help them out, too.

What have you tried? How has it worked? What treats or rewards were you surprised that your dog liked?

Ask the Dog Trainer: What Goes on During Service Dog Training?

June 12, 2013

What goes on during a check in with the service dog agency? A lot of talk like “He’s grown so much!,” “Look at those feet!,” and “Show us what he can do.” So we try to show off all the things we’ve worked on over the last month. Things like coming when called, walking past food on the floor, polite walking (walking without pulling on the leash), lack of stress around crowds, ease with and acceptance of trimming nails, grooming, etc.

Schooner didn’t get the memo that it was show-off time. He thought the memo said “social butterfly” time. I tried to show off his really nice front-paws-on-a-box move, but he thought I said “go visit the other dogs.” And he did! And did a darn good job of being the social director of his newfound friendly gang of fellow service pups in training.

Here he is sharing the crate of his fellow Great Dane service pup in-training, Jetty. She didn’t really invite him in, he simply assumed her lack of protest was the open door he’d been looking for all day. (She’s about 3 months younger than Schooner and hasn’t hit her growth spurt yet.)

I gave up on the two-paws demo and moved onto showing how Schooner could recognize his name. I called his name and he looked at every person except me. Yay Schooner! You’re really doing a bang up job of demonstrating your important service dog skills. At this rate, they’re going to take you away from me and send me home sans dog!

We decided it would be better to abandon the training demonstration and visit the mall. He was Mr. Looky-Loo there, as well as walking up to everyone who gave him a sidelong glance. When you’ve got a Great Dane in the mall, many people give you sidelong glances, let me tell you.

We walked the entire mall, pausing at the children’s play area. My husband and I don’t have kids, so it’s quite difficult to expose Schooner to the noise and activity of children. He thought they were a little odd at first — all the yelling and quick movements, but when he found out they had treats (we provided treats to the kids to give to the dogs), he was less suspicious.

It was clear to see that the whole experience had wiped out the two Great Danes. We decided to sit a spell and that’s when we lost the dogs. When I say “lost,” I don’t mean they ran away, of course. I mean they went away to dreamland. Both Danes collapsed on the floor and were asleep in a matter of minutes.

Learning is hard work!

Service Dog Training: 5-Month Old Puppy Training Goals

May 6, 2013

It’s hard to believe how quickly Schooner is growing up! Just a few weeks ago it seems, he was but a wee little pup!

Physically, he’s growing at an astounding rate. Mentally, he’s taking big leaps as well (thankfully!).

I just completed his five-month old questionnaire for the service dog organization and was amazed at all the things this boy knows (and is in the process of learning).

If you have a puppy, your pup is also able to accomplish all these things. Schooner is just a regular puppy, he has no special intelligence or skills. So if you’re looking for more to teach your pup than just sits, downs, and loose leash walking, take a look at Schooner’s list for inspiration.

By five months, Schooner is expected to be at least working on all of these. Some of these he should already be pretty good at.

Don’t worry, it’s not all work for Schooner. In fact, it’s usually a lot more play than work! As you can see from this picture, we take lots of training breaks and field trips where he can let it all hang out and be a regular pup. Here he’s trying to figure out just how those two dogs got all the way out there (they jumped off the dock and swam) and whether he’s brave enough to try this amazing feat (he wasn’t — at least not that day).

Watch me (look at me when I call his name once)
Auto check in (looking at me frequently just to “check in”)
Leave it (don’t touch it) with food in a closed hand, open hand, on the floor, and while walking past the food on the floor
Touch (his nose to my hand or lid) from 1′ or 2′ (or farther if possible)
Touch that object when it’s affixed to the wall
Loose leash walking (polite walking without pulling)
Recall (come when called) in the house, outside, away from play
Sit (in front, on my left, and on my right)
Down (in front, on my left, and on my right)
Stay (from either a sit or a down, to hold that position)
Release (tells the dog when they can get up or move or quit the behavior they were doing)
Meet and greet (meet people and dogs without pulling on the leash or jumping)
Look at that (dog will look at a distraction when asked) By asking the dog to look at something, we are getting rid of the startle/bark, and also getting the dog’s attention back on us while letting them check out the distracting thing)
Mat (go to your mat and lay down)
Kennel (run to your crate, go in, and lay down)
Up/Off (put your paws up onto something, take your paws off something). Can also mean get up onto something (onto the bed, for instance) or get off of something
Back beside handler (helpful especially for a large dog so they are easily maneuverable in tight spaces like hallways, trains, restaurants, etc.)
Back in front of handler (helpful when the dog has gone through a door first, turned to check on the handler, then needs to move backwards for the person to come through the door)
Go in (dog goes under table and lays down)
Wait (dog waits at the gate, door, etc. for the signal to go through)
Over (roll over)
Shake (fun trick) — dog offers his paw when asked
Hurry up (dog goes to the bathroom). This is really handy when the handler needs to go into a public place and needs the dog to empty before entering the building or meeting.

In upcoming posts, I’ll dissect each of these a bit more and give you tips on how to teach them and why they’d be helpful for you to teach your pup. Even older dogs can learn how to do these things. They’re fun to teach, and helpful for you to use. What have you got to lose?!

What cool things have you taught your puppy to do? Leave a comment below and share with us and the readers!

Stinky Dog

April 25, 2013

Great Danes amuse me for so many reasons.

I think their sheer size is comical for starters.

When you add in their vocalizations, things start to get really funny.

Topping it off are their facial expressions. I can’t take it, they crack me up. Is it just me?

Takea look at the video and let me know…Do YOU have conversations with your dog? What do you talk about? Do they answer back?

Please leave a comment and let us know!

Is There a Doggie Tooth Fairy?

April 23, 2013

Poor Schooner. He’s smack in the middle of losing his baby teeth. Here’s this gigantic 4.5 month old puppy (about 60 pounds) with a big head, legs the size of tree trunks, and these wee bitty baby teeth in his giant maw.

Just the other night, he was drooling as he slept. Startlingly, I noticed the drool was tinged red. And (not) coincidentally, I found blood droplets on the floor a little earlier in the evening. I didn’t put two and two together until just now — duh. Anyway, I’ve not had a pup teethe quite so hard — the blood-tinged drool, the whimpers after he finishes his meals and the incessant chewing. This boy’s got it bad.

He’s ruined a concrete Great Dane (go figure) statue thanks to his relentless chewing of all things hard. Occasionally, I’ll catch him chewing the wrought iron railing going down to our basement, or the marble on the corner of our outdoor fireplace. If that feels good, his poor toofy’s much be killing him.

Imagine my surprise when I went to wash the couch cover and I found two perfect little puppy teeth! At least two of them have made their way out. From what I can tell, he still has most of his back teeth and a couple of canines. All the others look to be big-boy teeth.

So here’s my question: does the tooth fairy visit puppies? And if so, what do you think he/she tucks under their doggie bed?

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