All posts tagged Puppy

Change my Mood Games

Often, a loud restaurant, or a big crowd can make me very anxious.

I tend to be hypersensitive to stimuli, so the noise, the bustle, the feeling of being crowded can get to me.

Did you ever play dodgeball in school? That’s sorta what a loud and moving crowd in Walmart feels like: I’m the only one on my team and every ball is coming at me.

I haven’t been to the movies in 10 years. The noise level starts messing with my ears, I get a little dizzy. The sudden loud crashes or yells are extra startling to me, like being slapped in the face. The flashing lights or special effects can set off a migraine, with its pain and nausea. I used to love going to the movies, but not anymore.

Since I know I want my puppy to alert and respond with body contact to the various moods that anxiety disorders and PTSD can produce, these “change my mood” games are very important. Great Danes in my experience are highly sensitive to people’s emotions as a breed. In fact it was my late Shabah’s sensitivity and natural responses that gave me the idea of a Great Dane as a service dog.

Anxiety can manifest as anxious, or irritable, or restless and unsettled. There are many uncomfortable moods a puppy can recognize and alert you to. They can even wake you from night terrors because they notice agitation and intense feelings when you’re asleep.

When a pup was just a tiny little 8 week old, I started the mood games very simply, wanting only 1) they recognize it, and 2) come to me. Hopefully by 4 months old, they have those basics down pretty well.

I know I’ve used this pic before, but I just love it. This is a PSDog: it’s okay, I’m here. They do what it takes to help you, and the stunning beauty of it is they didn’t have to. They want to.

It’s hard to describe the gratefulness a person can feel when you realize the unbounded love they give. “I won’t leave you in it, I won’t leave you alone.”

I saw a funny poster that had a German Shepherd sleeping with a newborn baby. The caption said “world’s oldest security system”. It was meant to be funny, but it’s absolutely true. A dog’s presence can illicit an instinctive feeling of safety. They got your back, all the time. Just having a dog with you is reassuring.

It’s a big job for a little guy, so I take my time training the alert and response. When I began the mood games at 8 weeks old, I was focusing on my own “big three”; sad, irritable, and anxious. The reward for coming to me was an immediate happy response from me.

Now I’m going to add a delayed happy response to help them understand that sometimes it takes longer to relax. I’m also varying the intensity of the mood. I let the puppy recognize a bigger spike of anxious, sad, or irritable and reward them heavily.

Then when they come to me and I pet them, I will wait 2-3 seconds (or 4 seconds or 1 second) before changing my mood, and the click/reward is also very high on the yummy and fun scale.

At this age, they are still very impressionable and sensitive to moods, so I won’t delay more than a few seconds, 5-6 at most. A sensitive puppy can become anxious themselves if what they learned earlier changed my mood doesn’t seem to be working. I don’t want them upset by this exercise.

Building their duration is important, but many puppies will become confused and uncertain themselves if I expose them to too much, too fast. The longest a full frontal anxiety attack really continues is about 20 minutes, so that is the end goal of duration and intensity.

But getting there is gradual, if I want them to maintain their own calmness and composure. I want them to learn to wait for the change, not worry if the mood takes longer to resolve than last time.

Some puppies will offer more body contact on their own, and if mine does he gets a great big reward. Eventually I will want the pup to come up from a down to a sit and lean on me when higher levels of anxiousness occur, and have my arm around them.

For a really severe attack, I will want the dog to remove me from the crowd or find an exit from the noisy place to get me outta Dodge.

This pic is of JP the PTSD dog, btw. https://www.facebook.com/pages/JPs-Journey-to-PTSD-Service-Dog/209467105753533

That is a future game, and the association of the action will be linked to the intensity of the emotion. But right now, 4-6 months old, I’m focusing on introducing the puppy to varied intensity and duration.

Because a puppy this age is sensitive, I only play this game once or twice a day. If I’m having a problem controlling my emotions, I include the puppy in my biofeedback practice with some cuddles while I relax, and doze with him while listening to the theta brainwave CD’s or other modifying activities. Otherwise, he gets a lot of time with my Mom that day!

What is fascinating to me, is how dogs just have an instinct for finding what makes them feel better, and sometimes what makes them feel better helps me too. After that biofeedback practice, I often take a pup outside to play. We give ourselves a time out, for fun. There’s nothing like a playful puppy to relax you and make you laugh!

Beginning Stay, Wait, and Leave It

These teach a puppy self control, which is going to be very important for a future working dog. The stay and wait are duration behaviors, so it’s simple to understand that a pup will have to build from short stays to longer ones.

This down stay at a class is vastly harder than you might think! That’s I want their sit, down, stay, and wait fairly solid before we go to an obedience class.

The class itself is loaded with heavy duty distractions for most puppies. Other dogs, other people, noises, smells, movement around them all are very distracting to a little pup! It’s asking alot of a puppy.

Always begin in a low distraction place, like home. Then try adding recorded sounds of other places at low volume, or open the window. Try that boring park where you hardly ever see anything interesting. The idea is to have the stay, wait, and leave it solid before you add a new distraction, gradually making the distractions harder to ignore.

Wait

This means when I click they can get up and come get their treat. It’s what I’ve been doing while teaching their sits and downs already. But now once they sit, I wait one second, say wait, give another second or two then click.

A great way to begin that keeps a pup focused is to click and treat after 1 second, have them sit again for 2 seconds before the click and treat, then 3 seconds before click and treat for as many seconds as the pup will sit, wait, then sit and wait again.

Doing this in rapid fire succession will certainly capture a pup’s attention and keep it, as well as build their willingness to wait longer and longer knowing the wait is only a little bit longer than the last time.

Then I will try just saying sit and waiting maybe 4 seconds before a click and reward. Then maybe 2 seconds, then maybe 6 seconds. I don’t always want to do a rapid fire exercise, using it only to re-attain their focus if they’ve gotten bored or distracted.

I want to build up to about 5 seconds solid without that rapid fire drill , before I start adding distractions like taking a step away from them, or having passive sounds on a recording playing. Squeaking a toy, making strange movements, having someone walk into the room…all are distractions they need to learn to ignore.

My late little BB in that pic was just learning, but he had the idea of watching me because the click was coming. And I had a goodie bag, with good goodies, and great goodies, and the bestest of all goodies and he didn’t know which one he’d get, either.

Get creative about it too: I would set a treat on their foot in a down and say wait, and they couldn’t have the treat until I clicked. Roll a ball around under your foot, let them see it but then lure their eyes back up to yours, the click and let them have their ball!

If they are breaking their wait while you move or have a distraction, return to the rapid fire drill, and if you can, walk around and such while you’re doing it. Remember wait means they can come to you once you’ve clicked!

When I’ve got a solid 10 second wait in low distraction places, even walking around them and not looking at them, we take the show on the road, and find quiet pet stores, or strip mall sidewalks. Somewhere that was still pretty quiet but has a few more distractions they wouldn’t get at home.

Don’t be surprised if the 10 seconds drops way down and you have to rebuild, or return to the rapid fire a time or two. That’s okay–you’ve made it harder. So don’t be stingy with the treats or the affection for what they are able to hold!

Since I start informal waits from day one, and formally practicing obedience around 12 weeks old, I have a full month before they have to face a highly distracting class setting.

Stay

Stay is not the same as wait. It means don’t move until I come to you. I teach both sit stays and down stays, but my SD canditate has long down stays much more often in their working life.

Once you’ve taught the sit, and the sit isn’t over until you click, you begin gradually lengthening the time they have to sit before the click comes just like wait.

When they can hold their sit or down for 3 seconds while I’m in front of them, I will wait 1 second after the sit command to say “stay” then 2 seconds later I’ll GO TO THEM before I click and treat. Next I will add some minor distraction, like stepping to the side or back a step or two, and try for the same 3 second stay.

If they are about to break their stay (their bodies begin to move), get yourself over there and click/treat before they get up. Look around and see was there something that broke their concentration or did they just have ants in their pants like a puppy often does. If they can’t hold 3 seconds, go down to asking for 2.

The point of clicker training is to reward success, not correct failure, so you want to gauge what you expect by what they can do right and well, and get rewarded for. Some puppies will easily hold a stay for 7 or 8 seconds, and some will have to work at 3 seconds. That’s okay, reward for what they are giving you.

It’s a little harder to do the rapid fire drill for a stay, since you have to come to them before they can get a click and move, but if you can try it’s a good way to passively prepare them for the stampede of kids at the park, or the reading program therapy work! The back and forth from front and sides is good.

Then I will lengthen the stay by one second at a time for a few days, and when they can do that, we add another, slightly more distracting distraction. You’ll be able to tell what your pup can manage pretty fast, and if they are masters of the stay, make the duration and distraction harder.

Walk around them in circles, go hug a person, slowly building the distance you can get from them without them getting up. Practice at the Walgreens parking lot where someone will eventually walk by with a shopping cart. Keep in mind the distractions an SD candidate will have to ignore as a working dog, and practice them!

Leave it

An SD in training will hear this alot once they have to start ignoring people that look or smile at them, or a dropped french fry at the burger joint.

It’s good to teach it now, so they know there are some things they don’t investigate.

I used to do this french fry thing to my Kenai and wish I had a pic of it. But Alas, the good GSD shall have to show you!

A turned on stove burner for instance, or that peice of meat that dropped off your pizza is a good place to start.

You can lure away their nose with a treat saying leave it, or you could call their name if you’ve practiced them looking at you when they hear their name. A hand target is a third option. Another way is to say leave it and just keep walking by something if they are on leash with you.

After going to so much trouble to stimulate their curiosity, we suddenly don’t want them to be curious about some things? Huh? Yeah, self control is what we’re really teaching. Not to mention scavanging off the floor is bad manners in a cafe.

Leave it can be used for anything you don’t want them to go check out, from people, to dogs, to trash, to houseplants, to kids with bad manners. It’s remarkably useful, and if you combine it with a hand target (don’t forget to cl and reward!), their attention is back on you where it needs to be for a service dog.

I can’t seem to stop mentioning a book called “Control Unleashed”, since it works wonders for distraction training. (Puppies are so easily distracted). There is now a puppy version as well, and I haven’t read it yet, but if it’s half as useful as the original version it’s worth getting.

Since I live in the country, I have to “import” some distractions, via recorded sounds, borrowed shopping carts, my trainer’s dogs and the like. I still take the pup to a good doggie day care, and ask for at least a simple sit or down a time or two before they are in an obedience class.

I’ll also be going to a puppy class, and maybe watching other doggie classes for a short time. Who knows, my next pup may have a go at a baby agility class for fun and distraction training. It pays to put the time and effort into a pup before they’re 16 weeks!

4 Comments

by greatdaneservicedog on March 29, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in clicker training, puppy training, service dog

Tagged clicker training, control unleashed, obedience training, Puppy, puppy training, service dog training, working dog

Posted by greatdaneservicedog on March 29, 2012

http://greatdaneservicedog.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/beginning-stay-wait-and-leave-it/

Beginning the “Come”

peek at you!

If you never train your dog to do anything else, teach them to come when you call! This can save their lives someday, if they are chasing that terrific ball right out into the street…A formal recall has several parts to it; recognizing a cue, disengaging from what they’re doing, coming to you. You can add extra steps like sit in front of me, or take up a heel position.But a recall has to start with a willingness to come to you. In the first week or two I’ve been heavily rewarding attentiveness to me, so by 9 or 10 weeks, coming to me on their own is a happy experience. If this needs more work, Sue Ailsby’s training levels begin with this come without the word “come”.

http://www.sue-eh.ca/page24/page26/styled/

For Sue’s exercise, and mine, I want to begin to introduce the idea that they come when I call them too. Volunteers are needed, standing in a circle and one at a time getting the pup’s attention without saying “come”. Clapping hands, whistles, most any sound you make can get a pup’s attention.

Once they look at you, a treat gets dropped at your feet. They will come for that treat, and get a click before they get the treat. Then another person gets their attention and does the same thing. With some repetition, a pup will begin to immediately look when you make a noise.

I will alter this slightly, by using their name the second they look at me. I’m passively reinforcing for them that their name means to “look at me”. I also play that “Name Game” seperately, to actively teach them, but I’ll combine it with this exercise.

When the pup is readily coming on their own, even before I’ve dropped a treat, that’s when to add the word “come”.

This part I really practice alot before starting to add minor distractions, like practicing when the neighbor’s cutting the grass or the radio’s on.

Right now I’m talking about 8-16 week old pups, so I don’t expect their recall to be rock solid anywhere and all the time yet. There are a thousand distractions in a puppy’s world, so I really take my time.

Sue suggests turning it into a find me game, which is a great idea, as is her thought of playing it with hats or sunglasses etc that alter the people’s appearance. So is making an obstacle course they have to get through to reach you, like a little maze!

WHAT’S NEXT?

I slowly add all the sounds, sights, smells, and movements that a service dog might encounter in a familiar place first, like the living room or back yard. “Borrow” a shopping cart that someone pushes around while you practice, or have someone dropping things.

The idea is to gradually add difficulty, not going straight from come in the living room to come at the dog park! Build sucess upon success, and if you get a “failure”, go back down to easier stuff and rebuild confidence (and habit).

Many trainers have recall classes, and you could also take advantage of those to practice in a distracting environment (ooh I wanna play with that lab). You can take them just to watch, too. If you can get a fast learned recall, great! If not, you’ve laid the foundations to build on.

1 Comment

by greatdaneservicedog on March 19, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in clicker training, puppy training, service dog

Tagged clicker training, Puppy, puppy development, puppy obedience, service dog, service dog training, Sue Ailsby

Posted by greatdaneservicedog on March 19, 2012

http://greatdaneservicedog.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/beginning-the-come/

Socializing Opportunities

For young SD candidates, 9-16 weeks old, I offer them lots of new experiences. I’ll start once or twice a day in quieter places, or allowing them just to watch busy things like kid’s ball games. I want to give them time to hear, smell, see and process everything before they have to interact.

The whole time they are being rewarded for watching without reacting, and rewarded even heavier when/if they lose interest in the goings on around them. Any attentiveness returned to me hits the love and treat jackpot.

Once they seem to be confident outside of the home, I want them to be petted, to have interaction will all kinds of people who are kind and like dogs.

This pic came from http://aspireofillinois.org/who-we-help/therapy_dogs.html

With my next puppy I’m going to try and get their Good Canine Citizen test done as soon as possible and get lightly involved in therapy dog work.

I’ll probably use an embroidered bandanna for therapy work, because I don’t want to confuse them later when they learn their harness means ignore people and petting. Puppies can make behavioral associations with equipment.

Here’s a document list of ideas for social experiences for your SD candidate SOCIALIZING from brand new beginners to more advanced and difficult outings. Take your time–don’t push a puppy into experiences that make them uncomfortable or you’ve defeated the purpose!

The idea of socializing is to let them become comfortable wherever they are, or learn to recompose themselves if something disturbs or startles them. A good habit to start is if something rattles them, coax them into investigating, and reward them heavily for checking it out.

A very good book for helping pups that react to certain triggers is “Control Unleashed”. http://www.controlunleashed.net/ The idea of socializing is to prevent reactivity but pups will almost always have something that upsets them.

And this book is solid gold at helping a puppy build their absolutely vital attentiveness to you!

Another great socializing opportunity is structured dog and puppy classes. Basic obedience class, baby or beginning agility…they all ask the pup to focus on you amid distractions.

I also begin moving the things they are learning at home out into public, at least in places they are comfortable and familiar.

Learn the names of truck, pond, fence etc, find it games at the dollar store, go to a candle store and get them to find an apple scent, practice pick up games at the park…I’m trying to make public feel to them as much like “home” as possible.

1 Comment

by greatdaneservicedog on March 16, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in clicker training, puppy training, service dog

Tagged control unleashed, obedience training, puppies and stress, Puppy, puppy socialization, puppy training, service dog, service dog training, therapy dog

Posted by greatdaneservicedog on March 16, 2012

http://greatdaneservicedog.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/socializing-opportunities-2/

Picking up Games

Puppies mouth just about anything, Great Dane puppies included. This pic came from www.dogtraininggeek.com

Danes in general though are not great retrievers. So rewarding any mouthing of objects is going to be a huge priority for me. Retrieval and noise sensitivity are my two main worries about a Dane SD candidate.

I’ll have picked a puppy at 8 weeks that shows the signs of picking up and carrying, but that needs to be heavily encouraged. Toys, ropes, fleecy squeakers are typical for pups to pick up, but a service dog will be picking up metal keys, paper, wood, plastic…just a scan of the kitchen table reveals a large variety of materials.

MOUTHING:

So the idea is to get them first to mouth strange tasting and smelling items. Metal keys could use a smear of peanut butter to make them more appealing to try. An empty plastic medicine bottles with a smear of canned salmon oil might find itself licked half to death.

The mouthing is then rewarded further as soon as they’ve gotten the last itty bit off with some peanut butter on my fingers, and more gets put on the keys. I want them to associate those unnatural surfaces and textures with something good to put in their mouth.

This is a great time to teach them the names of the things they are readily mouthing, to make it a game to ID it and mouth it. I set out 2-3 items they will now know the names of. things I will want them to retrieve for me someday

But once they know them, I’ll ask them to id them without the goodies to lick off. If they go to the one I ask for, then I will put the salmon oil or cream cheese on it for them. If I have to lure them a time or two to the item again, that’s okay to. They’ll learn!

PICKING UP:

http://www.petside.com/slideshow/national-dog-show-2011-behind-scenes/national-dog-show-great-dane

The pup picks up a toy and the rewards come out! Heavy and fast reinforcement of picking up will set in their mind that this is THE thing to do, nothin better.If I start with them picking up items a couple feet away, I might, might get a bring when they come for their treats. If not and they drop it to come get the treat, carry/bring is a step of it’s own.

Some puppies will generalize mouthing those peanut butter keys to picking them up, and some will not. I wouldn’t be half surprised if I need to gently put the keys or the plastic bottle or small can in their mouth for a moment, then do some heavy duty click/rapid reinforcing with treats and playing with the objects.

Some items will likely be easier: never had a Dane that didn’t love running around with sticks outside, so a mop handle might well be an an “indoor stick” they get to mess with. I’ve always played a game called “blankie monster” with fleece throws, and even my refuse-to-bring dogs would pick them up to play.

CARRY:

http://novathedane.blogspot.com/

Puppies carry their “trophies”, they play keep away, they hop around with a snitched toy

they love. That can be shaped into going from picking up to carrying something else if they have to work for that little mushroom can they’ve been allowed to play with before, so it then must be a toy of some kind, right?

The trick to rewarding a carry is to click before they drop it, or the reward is for dropping. I’ll have accidentally taught them not to carry. I can click and offer a bigger reward so they drop it on their own, or I can have them give it to me as I click, then treat them.

Planning Ahead for SD Tasks

I strongly suggest knowing before you get your puppy home what you need from them, want from them, and could manage without their help. These are some dogs from the Service Dog Project.org (link to right)

Since I know I will need a pup to pick up and carry things for me, they have to first have associated the name with the item.

I take an inventory of every room in my house, my garage, and my shed. Everything! If it’s on the floor, on a table, on the wall, you name it. From curtains which will be changed eventually, to the hamper they may someday pull to the laundry room for me.

Don’t forget clocks if you will need to take medicine at a certain time. And have a plan for teaching the pup to read a clock–yes, they can recognize numbers. Or they can count dings if you teach them. They can also recognize a medicine bottle with a say, red dot sticker if you teach them colors, that is taken at 8.

They can learn to read words too, once they know what an item is, by simply adding another association to that item. Exit signs, bathroom signs, even with lots of practice, reading a checklist to be sure the stove, oven, and lights get turned off when you’re done cooking.

Little 8-16 week olds can’t remember huge lists (the human short term memory capacity is 7 items), but teaching two or maybe three things a day is possible. To teach it, they need to notice it, mess with it, and have a name put to it. This way they get the visual shape, the color, the smell, the texture, and a sound. Multi-sensory input helps with the memory.

Go back to those 2-3 items several times that first day to make the associations go from short term memory to long term, and keep going back from then on so it stays in the memory banks. I like to play a “find it” game, with a clicker and a variety of rewards a couple times a day.

A find it game accomplishes more than just remembering what something is: it builds their ability to mentally map your home. That will later translate into mapping where things usually are at the dollar store. Not to mention they will think it’s a game to ‘find’ what’s on your list, and enjoy the “work” they don’t know is work.

Picking up is sorta a hang up with some Great Danes. They aren’t the best breed for retrieving, generally speaking. That’s why I would deliberately choose a pup from a litter that likes to mouth and carry. Even play keep away is okay at 8 wks.

The easiest technique for “training” puppies is called “capturing’–there’s a whole lot of info about it on the page called “Helpful Techniques”. Essentially it is seeing and rewarding what a pup does naturally to encourage more of that behavior.

So anything my future Dane SD candidate mouths gets a click n praise. Anything they pick up and carry gets a click and a bunch of treats. Anything they pick up and bring to really happy me hits the Bil-Jack jackpot. I’ll let them stick their little nose right into the goodie bag like a horse eating its oats!

Teaching them colors is as easy as construction paper with items that are the same colors. Numbers are not so hard as you might think either, just some index cards with big bold numbers on them to put the word and the shape together in their minds. Say “2″ and point to it so they look at it, get them to touch it while you say 2 again, and have a happy click with big rewards.

Once they know their numbers, they can take you to aisle 5 in the grocery by themselves! You can count unnumbered aisles out loud, so they can learn to count too. If they know the number 3, you can simply put one bone, two bone, three bone down in front of them. Then let them pull bones out of the box while you count.

If you click fast and make a big happy noise when they hit three, the click indicates to them the counting is over, and they did it. With practice, a puppy will count three items when you say the word or show them the flash card.

I’m not as worried about fancy obedience as I am stimulating their brainpower by teaching them items, colors, numbers, and such. You can teach and older dog to sit, but this 16 week window when their intelligence is growing by leaps and bounds goes by very fast.

Selecting Just The Right Pup

I am afflicted with incurable Dane love, this I know. So a future puppy I would pick to owner/train as my next service dog would naturally be a Great Dane. Aside from a life long love affair with the breed, they also have the size and physical strength for what I need in an SD.

I won’t say I’m fat (I am), I’ll just call it “well insulated”!

I began to formulate a guideline for myself, for choosing a future Great Dane service dog in the last post. The place I started was knowing 1) what I would need from an SD, 2) what I would want but could do without from an SD, and 3) how breeders can give a puppy a head start before they are 8 wks old and coming home with me.

This post is the next step: selecting the puppy that is just right for what I will be asking of them. When I go to pick a puppy, I will be looking for is first and formost a natural attentiveness. Other vital criteria are curiosity, tenacity, calmness, and quickness to learn. Most all puppies have that, but I’m looking for those things in near raucus abundance.

Puppies change, going through stages of development just like humans do. So a puppy will not be the same “person” when they are an adult. Just because a puppy can learn a sit or a down fast doesn’t mean they will do it so easily later on.

An 8 wk old puppy hasn’t been “trained” yet, so what is most visible about them is their innate nature.That is why when I look at a puppy, I am watching for inborn habits, the deeper personality traits that will later result in a behavior that I have “trained”.

The next posts will be how to build, encourage, and shape each of these traits in a new puppy once they are home with me. But they gotta have the tendency to build on, and I have to recognize them in an 8 wk old puppy. As well as “catch” the subtle red flags of a tendency that would make training them harder.

ATTENTIVENESS:

A puppy that would rather play with littermates than hang with me isn’t going to have the innate desire to attend to my needs and wants 24/7, which is an essential part of the work drive of an SD. If the most commonly seen side of a puppy you’re considering is his backside, think again. I spent a huge amount of time trying to build on my late Kenai’s attentiveness, with limited success. Take it from me, you don’t want to consider a puppy that isn’t a “people person”! The puppy that leaves a good romp with his or her littermates to come see me is the single most important quality I’m looking for. There isn’t much you can’t teach a dog that wants to interact with you.

After all, how do you train a dog that isn’t paying attention? So the puppies in the litter that happily and repeatedly come to me, or follow me, even paw me for attention make the candidate list right away!

CURIOSITY:

Puppies are naturally curious little tots, and that’s exactly what a future service dog needs to have. A willingness to pick up, mouth, swat around, and generally interact with anything in their environment morphs into a dog that will have a big skill set.

Selecting canned veggies at a store, pulling out a pan lid, putting dirty clothes in a washer, or finding a bench in a park without my direction are not typical activities of a companion pet. But a puppy that’s willing to adjust to the taste and texture of metal, willing to get their nose into a cabinet, or plays hide and seek can learn those tasks more easily.

Tugging games later become opening the fridge, or hauling a hamper to the laundry room. They will be inclined to pull up covers to help make a bed, or to open and close doors with a strap. Nosing toys around is where I can start to teach how to turn the lights on or off in a room. Or hitting the automatic door buttons, and even the elevator buttons. A curious puppy enjoys knowing they can affect their environment, and likes to do it.

CALMNESS:

What I don’t want is a super high energy puppy, a nervous and shy puppy, or an easily excited puppy. I have chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), Lyme disease, and fibromyalgia (FMS). The pain and exhaustion of those conditions means I can’t properly exercise or provide continual activity to a very high energy dog.

Nor will I have the energy for the extra socializing a shy pup will require. A sensitive puppy has potential as an anxiety or medical alert dog, but my physical limitations kinda rule out an extra sensitive little one. Most Danes are sensitive to their person’s emotional state anyway, so why go too far in that direction if it makes more work for me?

An easily excited dog will have trouble remaining calm and focused in higher stress environments like shopping malls. Which is precicely where I need them to be calm and focused. I do encourage and reward puppies for being calm and quiet, but again, it’s more work if they’re turning into Scooby on you!

So a confident, chilled out fella is the man for me. A puppy that is happy to lay at my feet when nothing’s going on is what I want. His working life will have long down stays while I eat out, or watch a movie. He will have to enjoy the frequent naps and lay down times I need, too.

One thing I’ve noticed about my past Danes in particular is noise sensitivity, so I watch specifically for startling or lack there of. Socializing helps with that, but I’d like most to start out with a bomb-proof pup.

TENACITY:

Opening a knob handled door is not an easy business for a dog. I don’t necessarily need a dog to, but wouldn’t it be great if they could open a closet door to get the blanket for me? It makes an exellent example for the need of a service dog to be willing to keep at it until they “get-r-done”.

Many SD tasks are what trainers refer to a “complex behavior chains”; in other words, there are many different skills involved in completing a task. For a knob door, they have to use their mouths, tighten their jaws around it, turn their heads far enough for it to release, and pull to open.

Some dogs will naturally put all those steps together. Others will have to be taught and rewarded for each one individually, until they are ready in their own minds to make the chain happen in order. (That’s called shaping, btw).

Like attentiveness, tenacity is an integral part of an SD’s work drive. A certain amount of stubborness is good, at least when it comes to mastering what they want to do.

INTELLIGENCE

I’ve posted in the past about how some breeds learn and understand differently than others. Some by repetition, and some by figuring it out themselves. These are generalizations of course, but overall, a Great Dane tends to happily learn a bit “on their own”.

By that I mean, left to themselves they will make associations, learn habits, and problem solve without your guidance. After all the breed was created to hunt without human assistance. A great book about training a dog with those habits is “When Pigs Fly”.

But having put so much emphasis on choosing a naturally attentive puppy, I should be able to avoid much of the difficulty I had with my late Kenai about changing his attitudes and associations with situations. Once he made up his mind, that was kinda it if ya know what I mean. (Told ya attentiveness is essential!).

So a pup that learns quickly, both on their own and equally well from me is a very good candidate. Even an 8 wk old puppy can learn a sit in just a few tries. Their memory and quickness improves over time but they can learn the basics really fast at that age.

I would like a puppy that is smart enough to problem solve on their own, to initiate or offer an old behavior in a new place or situation. If they need a little direction at first, that’s fine, but a pup with inititive and a willingness to try what worked “over there” is ideal.

To test for that in a new pup, I simply teach a sit with a reward, then move somewhere else to do it again. After maybe 3 sit lessons, I go to another place and look at them, waiting. If they pop a sit, I reward it really big and get myself some soft, fat baby love. (Best part).

****

The next posts will go into more detail, and I’ll be trying to “put together” everything I’ve learned and read over the years now. But this is a big enough order for a little 8 week old!

2 Comments

by greatdaneservicedog on February 22, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in anxiety, Great Danes, puppy training, service dog

Tagged "When Pigs Fly", Choosing a Dog, Chronic fatigue syndrome, clicker training, Dog, dog training, great dane, great dane puppies, Lyme disease, Pet, Puppy, puppy socialization, service dog

Posted by greatdaneservicedog on February 22, 2012

http://greatdaneservicedog.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/selecting-just-the-right-pup/

Where Would I Start Again?

Since I don’t want to abandon this blog now that Kenai is gone, nor am I goin to get another puppy in the immediate future…here’s my temp plan: where would I start with another puppy? Choosing a pup, shaping a pup’s habits, socializing, training foundation skills, etc.

I know what I need from a service dog. I’d need a dog to help me with mobility and anxiety. Under those to words are alot of specific problems: I have fatigue from CFS, brain fog from FMS, balance problems from Meniere’s disease, and joint pain from Lyme disease.

I also have anxiety, triggered by crowds, loud environments, hostile/angry/negative people, and other things that bring up feelings of helplessness or being trapped. A generalized anxiety disorder can incapacitate a person as fast as physical problems.

So a ”mobility” dog is one that wears a harness to help me walk farther, sometimes to get up and down, to keep my balance, and generally get around. I would also need him to help with the fatigue: he could bring items from the pantry for me, which reduces the energy it takes to cook supper. Or he could carry in the grocery bags for me, to limit the amount of lifting I have to do. Anything I can teach a puppy to do for me that lessens the number of steps it takes to accomplish something means the more I can accomplish in my day. You’d be surprised all the moving parts involved in something as simple as going to the pharmacy.

An anxiety dog is a bit trickier: many if not most dogs have the natural inclination to move away from someone who is upset. An anxiety dog is willing to touch, and make body contact without getting upset themselves. I would need a pup that is able to both help me relax myself, and also calm enough to do things like help me navigate my way through a crowd to a more open space. He would have to be able to focus on his task while I am anxious.

What task skills I’m looking for covers many catagories of assistance, from standard mobility to a bit of guide dog tasks, a few hearing alert skills, and the difficult to train for anxiety/PTSD work. I’d need a very special young puppy.

****

First I’d have to pick a pup with just the right personality traits. A service dog has some serious skill sets, yes, but it is the personality and innate tendencies that make aquiring those skills possible. One of the first things I’d look for is a breeder that heavily socializes a puppy before 8 wks. Exposure to noises, textures, people of all ages and the like is very important. Especially since there are someplaces that make me anxious.

If a puppy is accustomed to such loud and busy places before he comes to me, he is less likely to absorb my own anxiety about noise and crowds. I will be paying a clicker trainer to help socialize a pup in such places for me while they are little as well, to counter any “absorbing” he does from me.

Many SD programs that breed their own puppies begin “teaching” right from the time a puppy is born. They handle them, introduce tactile sensations like cold wet cloths, they encourage their play habits, curiosity, and being drawn naturally to humans.

Baby play like tug turns into opening cabinets, fridges, and doors. Curiosity turns into a willingness to interact with objects, ie later to pick up a can of green beans. Picking up and carrying a toy turns into retrieving items for a person. Handling results in a pup that isn’t too body sensitive to accept the tug and pull of harnesses or inevitable bumping.

So when a day comes that I go looking for a new Dane pup to train as an assistance dog, what I look for is attentiveness, curiosity, being undisturbed by noises, tenacity to keep at something, and a quickness to learn something “new” from me. Tall order!

I would love to have a relationship with a breeder where they would either give this sort of intensive play reward attention to a puppy before 8 weeks, or would allow me to interact with their little ones before 8 wks so I can find and shape just the right little love.

This gives a puppy a substantial head start in the roughly 2 year journey to becoming a service dog. In an ideal world…now wouldn’t that be lovely!

2 Comments

by greatdaneservicedog on February 20, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in anxiety, puppy training, service dog

Tagged anxiety, Assistance dog, chronic fatigue, disability, Dog, Pet, Puppy, puppy behavior, puppy play, Recreation, service dog, Training

Posted by greatdaneservicedog on February 20, 2012

http://greatdaneservicedog.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/where-would-i-start-again/

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lisa harmon
Having become disabled in my 30's, I began a new and unexepected life journey, chronicled on a blog. The need for tenacity, maintaining a stubbornly positive outlook on life, and the determination to focus on what I can do, have been the most important lessons disability has taught me.
I decided that training my own Great Danes to be my assistance dogs was one way I could have a fuller, more independent life. The experience has taught me more about life, love, and respect than any other endeavor of my life. There has been amazing triumphs, and deep sorrows but I wouldn't trade one moment of it!
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