Service dogs help handlers navigate the world with disabilities, from helping a visually impaired or hearing impaired person live more active lives to detecting episodes of anxiety in a PTSD-impacted veteran. Training these dogs takes tremendous patience for both trainers and their clients.
But does it make sense to train a service dog at home or enroll in professional program training? Read on Service Dog Training California for more information.
Training a dog for service work requires more than just teaching them basic obedience. It involves getting them used to working around people, other dogs and noises. It means training them to ignore those fried chicken frys under the table or the coos of “cute puppy” and not jump up on strangers. It also means training them to work with any distraction at the first cue and to remain calm. It’s a lot of work that many pet owners aren’t ready to undertake, especially if they only want their dog to be their companion on some days and work as a service dog the rest.
If you decide to train your own service dog, you can do it by finding a good trainer or organization that provides service dog training. You can also purchase a young puppy and train it yourself, which is much more expensive but allows you to choose the type of dog that best matches your needs.
The initial cost of a service dog can be as high as $5000, depending on the level of training and the type of dog. The cost can increase based on the trainer, facility and location of the program, as well as the duration and intensity of the training.
Once the dog is trained from a socialization perspective as a young puppy, it undergoes hundreds of hours of obedience training and then even more hours of task training. The tasks can range from helping their handlers stand and walk, to opening doors and turning on lights, putting on clothes and zippers, and even picking up dropped items.
If the dog is being trained to mitigate PTSD or anxiety, it may need to be taught how to sense those symptoms and provide comfort in public settings. For example, the dog might be trained to stop a panic attack by laying on its back and nudging the child’s chest when it detects its heart rate is too fast. Training your own service dog requires a lot of time and commitment, but it can be very rewarding.
Public Access Training
Many people get their service dogs through service dog organizations, but there are also individuals that train their own dogs. This often happens because the individual doesn’t qualify for a service dog from an organization due to their diagnosis or disability, but they still need help getting around. This is why they choose to hire a trainer who can help them train their own dog for public access.
Public access training consists of several different areas of behavior that will prepare the service dog for public interactions. These include:
Restaurant Etiquette: This tests the dog’s ability to follow its handler into restaurants and to remain calmly by its side while dining in or taking out food. It also includes ignoring distractions, and not peeking out from under tables or into food carriers.
Bathrooms: The dog must follow its handler into a bathroom stall, stay parked in a sit or stand-stay while the handler is washing his/her hands and not squirm or peek at adjacent stalls. It should also wait patiently and re-enter the building at its handler’s command without pulling on its leash or leaving the team’s space.
Vehicle Entry: The dog must exit the vehicle calmly, staying parked by its side and waiting patiently at your instructions until it is told to enter again. It also must remain calmly while the handler is bringing in or out their vehicle and waiting patiently at each stop, including a car wash.
In addition to the above skills, a well-trained service dog must be able to recognize when its leash is dropped and return it to its handler with little to no prompting from the handler (except for a treat to encourage this). It should be able to remain calm while being handed off to another person for a few feet or even a full walk around of a building, without reacting aggressively or wandering off. Often, public access testing will involve a standardized questionnaire that will be evaluated by an unbiased third party to determine if the dog is ready to accompany its handler in all manners of public accommodations.
Disability Mitigation Training
Many people with disabilities choose to work with a service dog because they want to live a more independent life and reduce their dependency on others for help with tasks. Service dogs offer physical, emotional, and social support and can significantly improve the quality of life for their handlers. They also provide a sense of safety and security and often become the person’s companion for life.
When someone is partnered with a service dog, the bond that develops is unique to each team and reflects their self-determination to overcome challenges through their relationship with their animal. It is a partnership that takes time to grow, evolve and change as the team learns to work together, but it is well worth it in the end.
The goal of disability mitigation training is to teach the dog to respond to specific, individualized cues from the handler. For example, an individual with PTSD might have their dog post and watch them in open areas, retrieve objects, wake them up from nightmares or alert and redirect the handler when they are having an anxiety attack. The specialized behaviors learned in this phase of the training program are meant to mitigate the handler’s psychiatric disorder or medical condition, and they must be reliable and consistent in all environments and circumstances.
For this reason, it is important to visit the training facility prior to signing on for any type of service dog program to ensure that the facility can meet the needs and goals of your specific team. If you’re looking for a particular type of service dog, it’s best to find a training organization that specializes in that specific disability so that they will have the knowledge and experience to successfully train your dog.
It’s also a good idea to ask about how long the training process will be and whether there are any additional costs that might arise during the process, such as veterinary visits or food. In addition to addressing these concerns, it’s a good idea to talk to other handlers who have used the services of a service dog training program that you are considering so that you can get a firsthand account of their experiences with the training and placement processes.
Behavior Training
During this stage, trainers teach service dogs how to ignore distractions and remain focused on their tasks. This may include ignoring a child’s desire to play with the dog, ignoring the handler’s urges to tug on leashes or collars, and not being tempted by small animals, such as squirrels. Trainers also teach the handler how to respond appropriately to their dog’s behaviors, including responding with calmness and appropriate verbal cues if the dog does not follow commands.
The goal is to create a partnership in which the dog has clear expectations for his behavior and his handler does not attempt to assume the role of pack leader or enforce household rules. This is an essential component of service dog training, since service dogs are often expected to live in public spaces with their humans and must not exhibit undesirable behaviors that could potentially interfere with the dog’s work or cause undue stress on the handler.
A large part of this training is ensuring that the dog is comfortable in the public domain and will not react negatively to stimuli such as crowds, loud noises, or strangers. This is especially important for dogs that will be working in noisy, busy environments or at events such as concerts or shopping centers. Dogs that are trained to aid a deaf or hard-of-hearing person may need to be exposed to different kinds of noises in order to be prepared for those situations, as well.
Many organizations train service dogs for years before they are ready to be placed with their handlers. These programs’ high standards and lengthy wait lists have led to an increase in individuals choosing to train their own service dogs. Some find success using online services that provide lessons on how to train service dogs and offer hands-on support during training.