My Ideal Puppy February 13, 2008

Service Dogs are more than just good companions. They have to be willing and able to learn all kinds of tasks that the average good dog won’t. And it takes a certain personality to accomplish the hundreds of hours of training and being on call 24/7. At Guide Dogs for the Blind, some 90% of their puppies don’t graduate the program. I found that pretty intimidating when I started looking at puppies. I could spend alot of money and time, and my new little boy still might not make it through the task training.

So I started trying to fix in my head what puppy personality I was looking for.  Thinking about the dogs I’ve had in the past (see the past loves page), going through their strengths and weaknesses, helped me figure out what I wanted. Riptide was a bit aloof, and preferred not to “meet and greet”. A dominant dog like Merlin, a rescue I worked with, is too much of a battle of wills for me to take on with my deteriorated health. A fearful dog like by beloved Shabah had the “anything I can do for you?” attitude, but would have required so much more socialization than I could manage right now. And a high energy dog like my play buddy the Tajmonster would leave me incapacitated!

The ideal dog for me is friendly, confident, submissive, and always wanting to do things with and for me. Tall order! I guess that’s why the puppy aptitude testing gets serious. (blogroll has puppy testing site link). There are certain traits to look for in a puppy, repeating the test over the course of several weeks. Believe it or not, the smartest and most curious pup in the litter may not be your best bet! I’ll explain it as I understand here, and when I get Kenai home and settled in, I’ll be testing him. Of course I’ll share the results!!

First is social attraction. It’s common sense that a service dog has to be more interested in people than toys and other dogs. So when I am a short distance away and clap my hands or call the puppy’s name, I want the puppy to readily come to me with a happy and confident attitude. The idea is the same for the puppy following when I call him and move away. I want a puppy that will follow easily, beside me or slightly behind, but not get all tangled up in my feet. A full grown Dane in the way is a major obstacle! And usually immovable…

Then the dominance/submissive tendencies are tested by rolling the puppy on their back and holding them there. Merlin was a fighter, and so was Taj. That’s dominance. Shabah didn’t resist at all, and didn’t make eye contact either. That is a timid reaction. What I should find in my next puppy is that he rolls easily, resists being held there just a little bit, then settles back down again. I want the same reaction when I pick him up off the ground for 30 seconds or so (not cuddled, just held up in the air).

Sensitivity is also very important, with three areas: touch, sound, and sight. For touch, a tester pinches the webbing of the puppy’s feet with increasing pressure and counts how long it is before the pup pulls the foot away. A very quick response isn’t good (2-3 counts), nor a very long time either (7-8 counts). Five counts is about right, and if they come to “forgive” the discomfort, all the better! Children pull tails, babies chew ears, and feet can get stepped on, so a dog that is gentle and loving enough to let it go is a good thing.

Sound and sight sensitivity needs to be tested too, beginning with less stimulating environments. A dog that panics at loud noises or skateboards whizzing by could get himself and me hurt. The noise and activity level from their birth is part of socialization, and a litter born in a busy neighborhood will need less work on my end! The response I want from Kenai to unexpected noises like clanging pots or bikes they didn’t see coming is a mild startle, but quick recovery. I don’t want barking, attacking, peeing, pulling, spinning, or running away. Investigating is okay, too, since most puppies are curious. Opening an umbrella is a good combination of sight and sound.

Prey drive is an instinct, and it is stronger in some dogs than other. A high prey drive will make calling your dog back to you when he’s chasing a squirrel alot more difficult! Being able to recall Kenai no matter what is essential, and being able to do it anywhere with any tone of voice. Darcy Krueger has an article on recall at sitstay.com (on the blogroll), which I will absolutely be using with Kenai. What I want in a puppy is curiosity, but not fixation on moving objects and critters.

Retrieving…here’s the big one for Kenai. Danes aren’t natural retrievers. But they are a very social, interactive breed. Retrieving has a high correlation with success as a service dog, so yeah, Kenai is going to practice! I have a friend with a lab who is going to show my boy how to do it! And again, Darcy Krueger has some ideas in her playing articles for sharpening the retrieving skills.

The retrieving test is simple, and it can be done with any object, be it a toy or a crumpled up peice of paper. The tester gets the pup interested in the object, tosses it and watches the reaction. Ideally, the puppy chases and picks up the object, then brings it back with or without encouragment.  Chasing and leaving it, chasing and running away with it, or losing interest before reaching the object isn’t a good indicator. Not even bothering to chase is is obviously not good.

There’s always the temptation to “fudge” a bit with your own puppy, so I’m also going to have my brother be the tester, and a professional trainer I have chosen. Each and every test has a direct impact upon the amount of training (ie time, money, and effort), and whether or not Kenai will pass his public access/good canine citizen tests. The more areas Kenai struggles with the less likely his is to succeed. So no fudging for me!

And puppies, or dogs from rescues or pounds, can become service dogs. It happens everyday. But my strength and energy is limited, and so is the budget. So I personally cannot try SD training with a puppy or dog that has lots of issues. I can’t physically do it. But if you can, or a partner or friend can, then please save a dog! I rescued for many years and it is heartwrenching the number of unwanted or ill trained dogs that get put to sleep because no one can or will work with them.  

Kenai’s puppy eval was outstanding, but even at 10 weeks old his independent personality was very much evident. I re-evaluated Kenai a couple times as he got older and developed, using both personality tests and intelligence tests. Right now, Christmas 08, he’s almost a year old, and here is where he “ranks”.

Instinctive/Breed intelligence: Danes were bred to hunt, black bear and wild boar, without much interference from humans. They were also used as guard dogs. Unlike say, spaniels or retrievers, Great Danes had to track and take down their prey, or decide who is a threat and who isn’t on their own. That means they first had to have terrific problem solving skills, and enough confidence and independence to do things without being told.

Kenai is very much a throwback to the old style hunting Dane, in that his instincts to track and think for himself are very strong. He is a confident dog, and highly attuned to his environment. The reason I put this here is because it has an immediate effect on working obedience, and Kenai’s strengths/weaknesses as a service dog. Intstinctive intelligence cannot be overlooked when choosing a puppy! For two examples of how breed traits affect training: 

1. his attention is focused on our surroundings, evaluating for himself the environment and how it relates to the two of us. That can manifest as wanting to pull the leash to go see something or not listening to commands when something excites him.

2. he is willing to respond without direction from me. When he was a few months old, I fell. He recognized the left side is what hurt, so he deliberately went to the right side and put his head under my arm without being trained to do so, let alone told.  

Adaptive intelligence: Kenai’s problem solving, short and long term memory, environmental awareness, and other aspects of adaptive intelligence have extraordinarily high scores. This is both good, and not so good, believe it or not. He learns even complex behavior chains (whiplash turn recall) extremely fast. He also gets bored doing it repeatedly.

A dog with high adaptive intelligence like Kenai doesn’t enjoy doing the same thing over and over, and with repetition begins to figure out how THEY want to do it rather than how they were told to do it. This combined with his tracking and independence has made recalling him off leash quite difficult. It also has made him highly capable of deciding how to handle a situation we haven’t trained for.

Working/Obedience skills: because Kenai, and Danes in general, are not given to repetitive human orchestrated excercises, the breed ranks about halfway down the list of the best obedience trained dogs. Kenai’s skills are all over the place. He is able to do remarkable things, like figure out how to open car doors, but getting a reliable repeat every time is not as easy as in some dogs. Boredom is a factor with Kenai, as is focusing on my commands in exciting environments.

At the same time, I can rely on him to be aware of what’s around me when fibromyalgia makes me foggy. He also is sensitive enough to alert me to anxiety and shortness of breath before the symptoms are bad enough for me to notice. Additionally, when presented with a situation we haven’t recently faced, he is able to remember long unused commands and apply them properly.  

Personality Tests: Kenai has gone back and forth on the tests as most puppies do. For instance, at 10 wks old, not even the loudest sound would cause him to lose his composure. At 6 months old, he became skittish of motorcylcles and skateboards, typical for the development stage he was in. At a year old, he notices and shows some excitement but doesn’t “freak”.

Noise and movement stimulate him. To be fair, he hasn’t had the exposure that dogs being trained by a healthy person could have had. I develop migraines and dizziness in loud places so I haven’t taken him to too many. Having chronic fatigue, there is considerable “down time” when our outings are short so he hasn’t adjusted to say, staying in a workplace for several hours. Also we live in the boonies, where there aren’t many dogs for him to have become blase about the presence of other pups.

My limitations have prevented him from developing to his fullest capacity. That is the down side to owner training in this case. The mitigating reality though is that he doesn’t really need to be able to down stay at a rock concert because we are highly unlikely to go to one. Still, it would have made the chance encounters with noisy stuff easier for him to adjust to.

He doesn’t resist handling, and is very much aware of his body in relation to objects. I don’t worry much about bumping or breaking things. yay! Friendliness is a blessing and a curse–he likes everyone, and wants to greet everyone. Sigh. That should decrease as an adult. Especially since he has a very dignified bearing.

Summary, 1 year old: For what I need, Kenai is well suited. Minus the cons, such as recall off an interesting scent in the field, or his unwillingness to retrieve, he is able to do what I need. Someone who required retrieving or tasks with frequent repetition would not do well with Kenai. What I need though is size, problem solving, quietness, and strength.

It’s normal for a strength to be a weakness, in humans and in dogs. I’ve traded off human command focus for Kenai’s capacity to approach a new situation without instruction. That means I have to be aware of and counter independence when I don’t want it. I’ve traded off contentment with repetition for the adaptive intelligence to remember unused commands long term. 

The ideal dog for me would have been a bit less independent, more command focused. Also retrieval will likely be more prominent in my next pup picked. A less instinctive dog, in otherwords. But I certainly do have what I need in Kenai. He’s a good boy.