This is Shea, she is 11 weeks old and is staying with me for a board and train. Her owner is a disabled U.S. veteran who hopes to train her for service work when she is older. I am teaching her basic obedience and house manners, and laying some service groundwork (take it, drop it, nose targeting) so that if she is a good candidate we'll have a head start on training. I have experience training service animals but not in selecting them, so I'm not sure if she will wash out or not. It's so funny to see her and Phil playing together! She's having a blast playing with my puppy Gabu, and is getting lots of socialization in. We will be spending a lot of time at a local art/dance studio for disabled adults, to get her accustomed to various medical devices. Yesterday was our first day there and she was very good.
Re: Look who's staying with me for awhile! She is so pretty , lovely kind eyes What an interesting job to do , sounds fantastic, but then you have to hand the puppy back
Re: Look who's staying with me for awhile! Oh she is gorgeous,what a great thing to do ,you will have to keep us in touch with how you are both getting on x
Re: Look who's staying with me for awhile! She's very sweet ! Good luck with your training little one x
Re: Look who's staying with me for awhile! It's a great job, I love it! It's not so hard to give them up because the owners are closely involved in training. Sometimes its a lot of work and can be frustrating, but I wouldn't want to have any other career.
Re: Look who's staying with me for awhile! She looks beautiful! Good old Phil, got a whole new job taking care of these puppies...
Re: Look who's staying with me for awhile! What a fab career to have (a tiny bit jealous) and Shea is just a dream! X
Re: Look who's staying with me for awhile! Wow, how lovely!! She is gorgeous!! Let us know how it goes....what happens if she doesn't make it as a service dog?
Re: Look who's staying with me for awhile! This particular dog will stay with her veteran if she doesn't make it as a service dog. Sometimes they wash out and go live with another family because the handler can't care for a pet and a service animal at the same time (this is always extremely hard for the handler.) We will know if Shea is a good candidate when she is closer to 9-12 months old - however, the tasks she'll be trained to do are pretty simple and I think she will do fine. She will be providing some PTSD related work, like coming around to sit in front of the handler on cue, checking corners, etc. She will also be trained specific retrieves - the telephone, bottles of water, etc. As she matures (18-24 months) she will be trained to provide some bracing and balance tasks, but these won't be used in public because her handler uses a motorized wheelchair outside the home. Labs are such a great choice for service work because they are easy to train and don't tend to get protective of their handlers - overt protection behavior will automatically wash a dog, for safety reasons. If the handler needs medical attention the dog needs to down-stay, and many breeds are more prone to protecting their handler in these types of situations. Honestly task training is quite easy, it's public access training that's difficult. It's hard to teach a dog to ignore strangers, not to sniff everything, etc. For service dogs, I use 99% positive methods and occasionally a prong collar for older dogs who begin training as an adult. (For behavior modification I use many tools and methods, depending on the dog.)
Re: Look who's staying with me for awhile! Wow what a fantastic job. Do you help train dogs for special needs children? It's something I'm really interested in and any information would be useful. Shea is a real cutie.
Re: Look who's staying with me for awhile! [quote author=elsarivka link=topic=5715.msg73468#msg73468 date=1399204078] Wow what a fantastic job. Do you help train dogs for special needs children? It's something I'm really interested in and any information would be useful. Shea is a real cutie. [/quote] I don't train service dogs for children, but there are many groups and trainers that do. I am confident in my training skills, but I am not confident that I can train a dog to listen to a young handler. The dogs I train go to people who are physically and mentally capable of controlling the dog, with perhaps assistance for lifting food bags, that sort of thing. I don't have the skill-set to train dogs for children or severely developmentally delayed adults. Most of the dogs that area paired with children here in the US are doodles - not sure why? I like doodles myself but I'm not sure what they have that labs or goldens or malinois don't.
