Postings by Nova

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Nova 1184372     Barked: Fri May 10, '13 6:47am PST  "There are many options for owner-training. I believe in stacking the deck in your favor as much as possible so that you have a better chance in ending up with a fully trained SD and not a dog you must wash out." EXACTLY. If professional dog trainers (like the guide dog school I mentioned) do not have success with rescues, why do people with no dog training background who are planning to OT think they can somehow do it better or know more than the professionals? If you're OTing, you need to stack the deck in your favor like Iris said, and you still must be ready to wash the dog out. I think far too many people get emotionally invested in the dog they are OTing and then have trouble washing out a dog that needs to be washed out. Why increase the chances that this is going to happen? It's incredibly stressful for both you and the dog, not to mention that you've wasted a ton of your time. my posts | my page | msg me | gift me | become pals [notify]

Nova 1184372     Barked: Thu May 9, '13 4:39pm PST  You certainly could conduct a CGC test after the dog settles down, but the problem is that the CGC test tells you exactly nothing about the dog's potential as a SD. I am confident in my abilities to train just about any dog on this planet to pass the CGC with flying colors; less than 1% of the dogs on this planet are SD material. That's the point I was trying to make. You can certainly train the tasks and skills the dog would need. You can train ANY dog to do just about any task. You can't train the "soft skills" that are THE most crucial part of a dog's ability to be a SD. A dog is either born with the potential for them or not, and if he does have the potential for them they can either be cultivated to reach that potential or not. Puppyhood is the most crucial time to cultivate those soft skills. Is there a dog sitting in a rescue somewhere in this world that has the potential to be a successful SD? Yes. What are the chances that I am going to be able to find this dog? Infinitesimally small. About the chance that I have to be the first astronaut to go to Mars. Sure it *is* possible, but I really shouldn't bank on possibility coming to fruition and if the ability to conduct my life were at stake there, I should probably find a more likely career; it would in reality be a waste of time for me to try to be this astronaut (even though I think it would be the coolest thing ever!) As a side note, my guide dog school is often asked about using rescues as guides (and berated for not doing so). The school actually DID try using rescues as guides a few years ago (and the dogs that don't pass as guides also get a shot at trying other types of service work, so we're not just talking guides here) and the results were abysmal! This school knows what it's doing, has its act together, had the financial resources to search all over the country and the best canine training expertise in the country (on par with other guide schools), and it was an utter failure. Those dogs didn't make it as guides or other types of SDs. I would LOVE for it to be possible to go to a few local rescues and find the perfect SD, but the reality is it's just not possible. my posts | my page | msg me | gift me | become pals [notify]

Service & Therapy Dogs > Exactly why are puppies from breeders a better choice than a rescue?

Nova 1184372     Barked: Wed May 8, '13 11:13pm PST  Many answers to this, but a quick one is that if you get an adult rescue, you have an unknown puppyhood and puppyhood is the most critical time in a SD's life. The outlook the pup gains about the world wouldn't be evident from a few weeks of a foster family. One of the greatest benefits of really knowing what you're doing when you're raising is that the pup gains a great deal of flexibility and learns how to handle himself in stressful situations and with stress in general. We're not talking situations that can be contrived in a few foster weeks; we're talking month five of heavy-duty SD training which no foster stay can replicate. That's why you have responsible OTs washing out 18-month-old dogs they have had in training since 8 weeks old. MOST dogs are not suitable to be SDs. Guide dog programs which have bred their own dogs for decades, begin working with them the day they are born, have them in heavily regulated raiser homes, and then with professional trainers for 6-ish more months. Even these guide dog schools have a wash-out rate of about 50% (a bit more or less depending on the school and when you begin considering released dogs wash-outs). So the chances of finding an adult rescue who has not had three of those four crucial components (decades of specific breeding, very early work, very purposeful upbringing, and a professional trainer finish) that would actually make it as a true service dog are so, so incredibly slim. Heck, the chance that a dog picked from a private breeder would actually make it as a true service dog are also slim, but nowhere near as tiny as the adult rescue. (By "true service dog" I mean dogs who are truly trained quality SDs, not the unqualified dogs in service dog vests being inappropriately dragged into stores in droves by every dog lover who manages to convince themselves they qualify as disabled under the lack of certification requirements of the ADA...any dog, rescue or otherwise, would work fine for that! ) Oh, and I'm all about rescuing dogs! I volunteer weekly at my local SPCA and all my pets are rescued! It's wonderful to try to save a dog's life, but think of how stinky it is for the dog when you have him for 6 months and then have to wash him out, which is what would happen in all likelihood. That's not so great for the dog to have to start over with a new family again, assuming you have to rehome and can't keep collecting rescue wash-outs! (Because again, you'll probably have to go through quite a few dogs to find one that might work out.) And by "you" I mean "one." my posts | my page | msg me | gift me | become pals [notify]

Service & Therapy Dogs > Retired SDs in public

Nova 1184372     Barked: Fri Apr 12, '13 6:02pm PST  Absolutely not. As a guide dog raiser myself, I know that the school would absolutely not condone this and the couple would get in pretty serious trouble if the school found out. The public ambassador deal is so that when the school has an event, at a school for example, the retired guide could go in addition to the dogs in training as an "ambassador." I would report them to the school. They should be told to stop. I wouldn't confront the couple though if you see them again. They need to stop, but in the scheme of things, there are much bigger fish to fry. I just moved to a new city and am absolutely astounded at the number of poorly behaved dogs vested and identified as SDs here. After one tripped me because it couldn't walk in a heel position I mentioned to the handler that while I love dogs and SDs and am a guide dog raiser myself, it would be best for her "SD" to learn how to walk next to her so the dog didn't trip people, she went off on me about how the law says she is entitled to a SD and she is entitled to train it herself and decide for herself when a SDiT graduates to SD status and she made the decision that "Fluffy" (name changed to protect the guilty!) was fully trained. Unfortunately, there is no school I can report HER to. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Basically what I'm saying is that yes, this is wrong, but non- or poorly-trained "SDs" are a much, much huger problem than an old, retired guide dog ambling slowly through a store. So shoot the school an email, let the school handle it (which they certainly will), and know that you've done your duty as a SD handler my posts | my page | msg me | gift me | become pals [notify]

Service & Therapy Dogs > We have a new trainer -- what do you think?

Nova 1184372     Barked: Fri Apr 5, '13 6:31pm PST  A prong collar is never necessary, period. Some people may choose to use it, but please don't think you need to because there are no other options. (If there *were* no other options, think about what that is actually saying: would you really want your health/independence contingent upon a dog that needs to have pain inflicted in order to perform his job correctly???? I sure wouldn't!) I'm not against the occasional correction when absolutely necessary, but if a dog needs a correction more often than once in a while, what it really means is that your dog isn't fully trained yet. If your dog is constantly making mistakes, he's still learning. Which is totally fine, but consider whether you want to be inflicting pain on a dog that is still learning how to behave. Seems rather cruel, no? And then on the working side of things, Charlie, you mentioned your dog was responding better to your trainer after your session. Of course! Because he knew that if he didn't do what he was told, he would feel pain. So in reality, if he wanted to avoid pain, he had no choice in the matter. That's not the type of training I want in a service dog who is going to be working for me. I want my SD to *want to work with me* rather than working because he knows there will be consequences if he doesn't. I've been affiliated with a guide dog school as they've undergone the transition from older methods of training (the collar pops) to newer, positive training methods. The difference in quality of guide dog coming out is simply incredible. Not that the old guide dogs weren't solid, but the new positively-trained guide dogs are on a completely different level. EDIT TO ADD: Sorry, OP, I didn't directly answer your question. I believe this trainer's methods to be actively harmful. Like I said, I'm totally not against an occasional correction for an already-trained dog that needs a reminder, so I'm not one of those anti-correction people, but I recommend staying far, far away. I would look up trainers from the Karen Pryor Academy as a starting point. my posts | my page | msg me | gift me | become pals [notify]

Nova 1184372     Barked: Tue Mar 19, '13 6:32pm PST  We teach our guide dogs a "settle" command which just means "hey we're chilling here for a while. Lay down and take a load off." Useful for dogs who, when you do a down-stay, won't relax because they're waiting for the next command. All you really need to teach is "down" because after you say down your dog shouldn't be changing position until you say something anyway. my posts | my page | msg me | gift me | become pals [notify]

Service & Therapy Dogs > Everyone is fading from this board...

Nova 1184372     Barked: Sat Feb 16, '13 7:33am PST  For me it wasn't PSDs at all but what seemed to be a movement towards a destructive environment. I kept seeing more and more people who had no clue what they were doing being encouraged to OT a SERVICE DOG, and having people get mad at me and "remind me of the rules of the forum" when I pointed this out. There also seemed to be a lot more of "Oh, I have social anxiety, can I make my 6-year-old pet dog Fluffy a SD and take her everywhere with me?" with the response being super encouraging. Whenever I would express my concerns, I would again be "reminded of the rules of the forum." To me it had become a really, really destructive environment that is harmful to all SDs everywhere, and I just have no interest in being a part of that. It's sad, because there was also a lot of other good things going on here. This is a totally separate issue from a specific type of service dog, but it did seem to just so happen that a lot of people who fell into this category did have PSDs, but that was completely irrelevant to my feelings on the issue. my posts | my page | msg me | gift me | become pals [notify]

Service & Therapy Dogs > "Therapy Dog" in the mall.

Nova 1184372     Barked: Mon Jan 21, '13 5:00pm PST  Just because they do not have public access *rights* doesn't mean they are prohibited from public access. i.e. The mall owner could have thrown them out if he wanted to and it wouldn't have been against the law as it would have to throw out a SD team, but if the mall owner is okay with them being there they are totally allowed to be there. I've worked at a bookstore and we didn't mind if somebody brought a dog in. I've also been in lots of malls where people are allowed to bring dogs. Just because most people don't doesn't mean it's prohibited. In general, only get mad if people are passing their dog off as a service dog. Sounds like these people weren't. my posts | my page | msg me | gift me | become pals [notify]

Service & Therapy Dogs > Force Free Training

Nova 1184372     Barked: Sun Jan 20, '13 9:54am PST  I'm out the door at the moment but I'm such a proponent of positive training techniques, especially for service dogs, I just had to respond. Can write something longer later. Basically at this stage you should never be taking your pup to a situation where she cannot behave. If she is dragging you on walks, your walks are in much too distracting places. Walks for puppies aren't exercise; they're training. When she's dragging you on a walk, she is practicing bad behavior. Remember, practice doesn't make perfect; practice makes permanent! At this point, maybe she can only "walk" a half a block with you. THAT is your walk, then. Figure out another way to exercise her. This could be running around in the back yard, going to a dog park if you're comfortable with that and have a safe one in your area, etc. You do have to get creative here. (I've been through it all, believe me. I raised guide dog pups while living in a high-rise apartment.) In short, separate exercise from walks and only take the pup places she can behave. I think that is a good start for you. my posts | my page | msg me | gift me | become pals [notify]

Nova 1184372     Barked: Thu Dec 13, '12 4:02am PST  Most reputable dog trainers think Cesar Milan is horrible, just horrible. I say "most" because I haven't met every single reputable dog trainer out there, but I do know quite a few and every. single. one. of them has nothing but horrible things to say about the guy and his methods. Read Suzanne Clothier and Patricia McConnell. Suzanne Clothier's "Bones Would Rain From The Sky" is a must to get an idea of how you'd like to approach your relationship with your dog, which is even more important in the SD world than in the pet dog world. Your personal relationship will be key to your working relationship, and in terms of raising a puppy is a LOT more important than "formal training" at that state, and will serve as the basis for formal training. So don't skip the relationship step, as most people have a tendency to do. Patricia McConnell has more step by step training instructions. my posts | my page | msg me | gift me | become pals [notify]

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