Service Dog Training
Are you looking for a service dog for yourself? What kind of breed shall be ideal for you? This website is dedicated to answering these, and many more such questions, to help you in making an informed and well thought decision.
- Diabetic alert
- Mobility service
- Psychiatric assistance
- Seizure alert
- Hearing alert
- PTSD assistance (Post-Trauma Stress Disorder)
In order to be eligible for training, a dog has to be at least 6 months of age. The pup could have been brought in from a pet shelter home by the training center, or could be brought in by the owners themselves. Before selecting these canines for training, veterinary doctors check them for their weight, size, physical ability and ensure that a it doesn't already suffer from any ailment. Along with this checkup, their individual temperaments are also studied and recorded. Upon a successful medical check-up, the training begins, which may be divided into different semesters, with each semester being of three months of duration. Following is a general layout of a training plan that is followed by various service dog-training centers.
In the first semester, the pups are introduced to basic obedience commands like sit, up, stop, shake-hand and fetch. As for the grown up dogs, in addition to these commands, they learn to assist people in wheelchairs, which is an important part of service dog training. At the end of the semester they are evaluated on an overall basis and then, suitably, promoted to the next level of training in the second semester.
In the second semester, dogs are taught more commands that an ideal service dog should know. It is important to teach them such commands early on in their lives, as like human begins, they too are more receptive to learning new things when they are young. Some of the service dog commands and their meanings are as follows:
| Command | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Alert | The dog alerts you of something by touching your hand |
| Behind | Instruction to walk behind the wheelchair |
| Brace | Stiffens its body and gets ready so you can take its support and stand up |
| Careful | Tells the dog to become careful of a peculiar situation, like, while assisting you in crossing the road, being vary of the fast moving traffic. |
| Come | The dog should come to you |
| Drop it | Instruction to leave down whatever it is holding in its mouth. |
| Find help | The dog gets alert and runs to the nearest person to get help for its master in need |
| Get leash | It finds and retrieves its leash and give it to you |
| Get pack | It finds its service dog pack and gets it to you |
| Go through | Instructs it to make an exit from a door before you |
| Go to your room | Tells it to leave you and go to its room |
| Leave it | Tells the dog to ignore the crowd or to stop paying attention to something |
At the end of the semester, they are evaluated to see how much they have learned and then, accordingly, they are trained further.
Collective training: At this stage, the dog and its owner are paired together and both of them are trained in how to handle and understand each other. Developing this chemistry between a pet and a master is an extremely crucial and the foremost factor for any successful man-animal bonding. In this near-about final stage of training, the dog is trained to work around his master. Upon the successful completion of this round, the dog is officially handed over to the owner. The service dog training certificates are also provided at this concluding stage.
Follow-up process: The training center carries out a time-to-time follow up in order to ensure that the dog is performing well to the commands of its master. If the owners have any questions, they can ask the instructors at any time; they are always there to take up your queries. The owners are also invited to various seminars and programs from time to time. This is how service dog training takes place.
We have a selection of various dog training related articles here, which will help you in understanding exactly what all factors are involved in such trainings, and how to go about buying a service dog for yourself. In addition, you will also find a lot of useful information about various service dog-training centers across the US and the various certifications required for owning such a dog.