service dog Archives - Smart Dog University

Meet the New Service Puppies in Training

January 27, 2019

Time to dust off the blog! We have news!

Puppies! We have puppies! Service puppies in training!

yellow Lab puppy, yellow Lab, Whit, service dog in training — Whit

Good lord, they are exhausting, but jeez louise could they be any cuter?

Whit and Dougan are our latest service puppies in training. I picked them up a little over two weeks ago and they have taken over the house.

Lab puppies, black Lab, yellow Lab, service dog in training — Yin & Yang
Dougan & Whit

We had taken a break from raising service dogs because our senior dogs thought puppies were awful little things. And now we’re back with a vengeance!

I’ll let you in on a secret: these guys are Puppy #4 and Puppy #5 since January of last year.

Yep, I’ve been holding back. Keeping silent. Mums the word.

Not for any good reason. Not for any reason really. Just haven’t had the gumption to blog in quite awhile.

But now I’m back. WITH LITTERMATES! Where’s the eye-rolling emoji?!

You’ll get all the details over the next few weeks, but until then, enjoy these delicious, fat-bellied, puppy breath smelling, roly poly little babies of sweet delight!

Service Dogs Need Vacation, Too!

June 10, 2016

If you’ve ever wondered if service dogs get a vacation, the answer is yes!

Our door is always open for service dog puppies that we’ve raised.

service dog in training, service dog, service puppy, puppy training, Smart Dog University, clicker, Laurie Luck, Frederick, Mt. Airy — Baby Levi

We love the chance to get to know their new families and to have a little piece of our life back with the dog that we raised. It’s fun to see them as adults. They go off and work a real job with responsibilities and everything. We get to see the result of the 15 months of hard work we put in when we were raising the pup.

Until their new family drives away. Then all bets are off.

Those responsible service dogs are then allowed to have “vacation brain.” They can turn all those responsibilities off for a week or two and just be regular dogs.

We hadn’t seen Levi since I turned him in back in January of 2015.

It was only a year and a half, but it felt like forever. We were unable to attend Levi’s graduation ceremony because of one of my work commitments, so we were overdue for a Levi-fix.

I met Levi’s family halfway between our homes. As I waited for them, the anticipation was killing me! For a brief moment, I wondered “Would he remember me?” I was out of his life 18 months ago, there one day, gone the next. (I always wonder what they think about that sudden disappearance.)

When the arrived, I got out to greet them. As soon as I got out of my car, it was clear Levi remembered. I was beaming, he was jumping (allowed on rare occasions like this), and everyone was laughing. What a spectacle we must have been. Levi hopped into the car and settled in for the 45-minute drive home as if no time had passed since I last saw him.

I knew integrating him back into our house would be a breeze. The initial multi-dog excitement led to Schooner-Levi zoomies in the fenced backyard for 15 full minutes. We got to see the famous “butt tuck” run that Levi was famous for when he lived with us. (The “butt tuck” is when a dog is running hard and tucks his butt under his legs. It’s both hilarious and endearing.)

Levi spent almost two weeks with us on his vacation.

He was a good vacationer — he didn’t check email or call into the office once! I was texting with his family while they were abroad to let them know what adventures he was enjoying each day.

Having a young dog back into the house was fun and also exhausting. Our dogs are all seniors at 14, 13, and 10 years old. Schooner is 3 years old, but at his size, it feels like he’s older than he is. Great Danes are quite the couch potatoes and Schoons isn’t used to running all day long.

Thankfully, our neighbor has a dog that was Levi’s best friend when he lived with us. It was fantastic seeing that reunion, as well! Dogs don’t forget, that’s for sure.

As Levi’s family was exploring foreign lands, Levi was kicking back and relaxing in the kiddie pool. Again, none of our older dogs enjoy the pool much now, so it was entertaining to see Levi jump and dig and romp in the pool. Oh, and to run in the house fully drenched, too. I didn’t miss that part at all!

Levi was respectful of the older dogs, politely inviting them to play. And accepted their refusal with grace (most of the time). He found his old spot on the couch and settled in as if he’d never left. Same thing at bedtime: he found his favorite sleeping spot like he’d been there every night.

All good things must come to an end, and Levi’s vacation with us ended last week.

He was just as happy to see his family as he was to see us two weeks prior. And that made us all laugh and thankful that Levi has two great families to call his own.

Service Dog Training: He’s Baaaack!

April 27, 2015

We have added a fourth dog. And it’s not a service puppy in training.

It’s Schooner!

Great Dane, puppy, dog training, puppy training, Frederick, clicker training, Smart Dog — It’s hard to run when you step on your paw!

We raised this guy two years ago with the expectation that he’d be a brace (balance) dog for someone. He went through his puppy training with us quickly. We had him a mere ten months before he went into advanced training. He stayed at the service dog organization in the advanced training program for 15 months. He was 99% perfect!

Released.

Service dogs are held to a very high standard. They need to be medically sound (no allergies, no dysplasia, no skin conditions, etc.). Sadly, he would occasionally bark and pull toward another dog. Working as a brace dog, his leash manners need to be perfect. And they almost are. But not good enough. I can’t lie: I did a happy dance when I got an email from the organization saying that he was being released and did we want him.

Did we want him?! Yes, I’ll be right down, I said! It actually took a week due to scheduling conflicts, but the big oaf came to live with us permanently last Saturday!

I was thrilled, yes, but I was sad, too, because Schooner is a fabulous dog — he had so much of what it takes to be a service dog in training and could have done so much good. But risking someone’s safety — even though he was unreliable just one time out of a hundred — isn’t ethical, regardless of how good he was in every other way. Would you want to drive a car whose brakes worked 99 times out of 100? It was a tough decision for all involved, but it was an easy one for us: Yes, we’ll take him!

The transition.

We live with three other career changed dogs: Tango, Lily, and Nemo. Service dogs in training get to go everywhere with their trainers. They get used to going anytime we pick up the car keys, so the transition from service dog in training to pet dog can be a rough one. The first time since Schooner’s homecoming when I left the four dogs to run errands, I watched Schooner closely on our Dropcam. The poor boy howled for quite some time after I left. I had forgotten just how hard the transition could be.

Since that first howl-fest, he has gotten better at staying behind and I’ve gotten better at my departure routine. Instead of a frozen Kong, which he quickly abandoned, Schooner now gets a fresh peanut butter stuffed Kong which gets him working right away and affords me a few moments to leave without being watched. I’ve since watched the happenings on the Dropcam while I’m gone and he’s now sleeping on the couch with the other dogs more often.

What’s next?

We are taking the next few weeks to let Schooner adjust to his new life and settle back into our routine and our household. We want to get him into therapy work so he can continue to do good. His manners are impeccable and we’ll be working hard to keep those up to the service dog standard. Look for more Schoons stories, pictures, and for him to show up in our dog training videos!

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Service Dog Training: Turn-In Day for Levi

January 30, 2015

Dreaded turn-in day.

The minute you get your new charge, that lovely and naughty little pup, you know — KNOW — the countdown to turn-in day starts. I’ve done this more times than I can remember and I’m still surprised how hard it is — and how the date sneaks up on me — even after 14 years.

Today, of course, was Levi’s Big Day.

For him, this is a fabulous day. This is the day he’s been waiting for (without even knowing it). Today’s the day he goes off to college! Late night parties, studying for tests, making new friends, finding out what he’s going to do with his life.

For me, turn-in day is a mixed day.

I’m happy that he’ll get to learn more, do more, see more, play more, work more. I’m sad that he won’t be doing that with me. It’s totally selfish. My dogs are happy — no more teenager in the house who jumps on their heads, butts his way into everything, interrupts their sleep, steals their couch space, etc. You get it: the only sad one here is me.

Turn-in itself went well.

We ran Levi through his paces, talked about his current level of each behavior so the organization has reasonable expectations. Levi did fine through all of that, even though the last time we’d worked together was before Christmas. He got some fun playtime in with our previous service dog, Schooner, which, of course, made me double happy.

All was well until they leashed him to leave. (I hate leaving the dogs, so whenever possible, I prefer for them to take the dog on a field trip or something so I’m not literally walking out on them.) Levi’s a happy guy, willing to do anything, but when they went to take him out of the building, he looked back at me and gave me a “Huh?” look. A “Shouldn’t you be coming with us?” look.

“Kill me now,” was all I could think.

I gave him a happy smile, kissed his head, and they cheerfully called his name. He wagged his tail, caught up to them, got a treat, and trotted on out to the car, happy as a lark. He didn’t think twice. I was panicked.

I hope you’ll forgive me for not having a dog-training video ready this week.

It’s ready, actually. It was done a few weeks ago. I just don’t have the umph to put it up. You’ll see it next week, it’s about out-of-sight stays. If you haven’t guessed, Levi is the star. I’ll be ready to see it next week, but to see it today — that’d be a tough one. Hahaha, such is the life of a puppy raiser.

How to Fix Your Dog’s Behavior

June 12, 2014

Your dog isn’t ignoring you.

Your dog isn’t stubborn. He’s not blowing you off.

Nope, you’re not getting off that easy. Your dog just doesn’t know what you think he knows. Don’t worry, the fix is easy and you’ll learn how to fix just about any behavior you’ve taught your dog.

The folks at the service dog organization for which I’m raising Levi have requested that I clean up and improve his “down” behavior. There are a few specific complaints they’d like me to address:

it takes him awhile to start the down after he’s asked
occasionally it takes him too long to execute the down once he’s started
he will sometimes need two different cues (the word “down” and the hand signal)
when he’s in public, he has a harder time doing all the above

Sound like a big problem? Nah, it’s actually just a few little ones that are relatively easy to clean up.

It’s easy to see where inexperienced people could say that Levi was ignoring me when I ask him for the down. “Because he doesn’t want to do it.” Or “because he’s stubborn.” That’s the easy way out and doesn’t give you any sort of plan for improving the dog’s behavior.

That’s passing the buck and it doesn’t fly here at Smart Dog U: you’re the trainer, it’s your responsibility to fix it!

Let’s look at each piece of our puzzle and deconstruct each one.

This is how professional trainers solve problems everyday, but it’s not limited to just the professionals.

You can take the information here and work on your dog’s own issues using these same techniques.

It takes Levi awhile to start the down after he’s asked.

This is called latency. The amount of time it takes the dog to start the behavior after he hears the cue.

It takes Levi a while to do the down once he’s started.

This is called speed. The amount of time it takes the dog to actually do the behavior once he’s started it.

Sometimes Levi needs me to ask him to down twice, with the word and the hand signal.

This is a cueing problem. Levi doesn’t know one of the cues, most likely.

In public, Levi’s down behavior deteriorates. Everything’s slower, and he needs more than two cues.

Behaviors have to be dead solid to be immune to distractions. That Levi’s behaviors deteriorate in public means that he’s not ignoring me — he doesn’t understand the down as solidly as we thought.

Now, doesn’t that seem a lot more workable than simply saying “My dog is ignoring me?”

Here’s how we’ll fix the first problem: the latency (the amount of time it takes the dog to start the behavior).

Ask the dog to do the behavior, down in this case several times in a row. Count the number of seconds it takes the dog to start the behavior. Find the average amount of time it takes. From this point forward, when you’re working on latency, you will only click and treat those downs that have a shorter latency than your average. For Levi, his average was about one second. I will only click and treat the downs that start less than one second after I cue him. The other, longer-to-start downs won’t get clicked and treated at all. Levi will soon realize that only those faster ones count.

Additionally, I can help Levi by cleaning up my own cues, by getting him jazzed up with some super-short and energetic play breaks, and by clicking him the instant I start to see him start the down process (instead of waiting for him to get all the way into the down).

We’ll address the next problem in next week’s video. Stay tuned, you can use these techniques to spiffy up your own dog’s behavior.

Service Dog Training: Our New Charge, Levi

January 20, 2014

Meet Levi, our newest service pup in-training.

He’s about 10.5 weeks old and cute as a button. He’s a Labrador retriever from service dog parents. He was bred specially to be a service dog and we have high hopes for this boy.

I picked him up on Thursday evening and we made the 3-hour trek to the service dog organization before dawn on Friday so the trainers could meet Levi. He came from a breeding cooperative made up of several service dog agencies.

Levi is part of the western themed class.

He’s named after Levi Strauss, of course. The Strauss family had a thriving business in New York and decided to open a West Coast branch of the dry goods business in San Francisco, which was the commercial hub of the California Gold Rush. Levi was chosen to represent the family and he took a steamship for San Francisco, arriving in early March 1853, where he joined his sister’s family. The doggie version of Levi joins Annie Oakley, Stetson, Bolo, and others who are all within about 4 months of one another.

We puppy tested him to make sure he was a solid young pup.

Part of he initial puppy test involves presenting several novel objects to the pup and noting his reactions. Ideally, the pup won’t mind any of the objects or, if startled, we’re looking for a speedy recovery and then curiosity toward the unfamiliar object.

After raising Schooner, the Great Dane, it’s fun to be back in the familiar land of chow hounds. Food is a powerful motivator for the Labrador retrievers and makes for some really quick learning. He’s integrating gradually into the dog family on schedule. The other dogs don’t love him yet — and will very often get up and move away when he comes near — but it’s good, steady progress.

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