Tips for a Service Dog Owner from fellow students
"As a power wheelchair user, I’d like to add some things (to your videos) that might be helpful, especially to people who are raising and training their own service dogs from puppyhood.
Personally, I can’t imagine trying to train and use a dog that was afraid of the chair. One of the things we tested for and paid a lot of attention to was a puppy’s ability to recognize and react to discomfort/pain; quickly recover and then “forgive” whoever or whatever caused it. By itself, my chair weighs over 350 lbs and although my service dog, Laurel and I work hard for me to not run her over (it’s only happened about 5-6 times), as active as we are and the close quarters we are often in, I believe it is inevitable that I will occasionally do so. It is pretty traumatic when it does occur and if Laurel couldn’t recover and be willing to come right back next to my chair, it would severely limit what she could do for me and what we could do together. At least for someone in a power chair, the dog must have the ability to get run over and still not be afraid of the chair.
My service dog is a Labrador Retriever and we got her when she was about 8 ½ weeks old. From that time until she was about 4 months old, when we went out with her she either sat on my lap or I used a manual chair and she could walk or sit in my lap. When she got too big to sit in my lap but was still small enough that if I ran her over in the power chair, I risked breaking something, I only took her out with my manual chair.
From the time we got her, I used my power chair around the house and she learned to stay out of its way. When I started working with Laurel, I found the wheelchair to be a barrier between us which really annoyed me (and there are still times I feel that way). I think that is because when I could still walk, I trained and competed in AKC obedience so I know how much easier it is to train on your feet than in a wheelchair. Early on with Laurel, there would be times I would get on my feet to train something but since I am a disaster at walking and I realized that things she learned that way didn’t necessary translate when I was using my chair, I quickly determined that regardless of the frustration involved, I needed to stay in my chair to train everything. On a side note, we have been doing agility for a couple years now and being in a chair never bothers me but I never did agility on my feet so I have nothing to compare.
When we started working with Laurel walking next to my power chair, we did so in a large enclosed training room. We had her off leash and used her ability to target to come up into heel position. We taught her “left” and “right” and when we turned left, I would throw a treat in that direction so that she would move there before my chair did. I still use the directional commands when heeling, in agility and for all sorts of things.
I realized early on that Laurel’s “heel position” when doing rally and obedience versus when we were out in public had to be two different things. When we were out in public, Laurel naturally wanted to walk further forward than she did when we were in the ring training or competing. I realized that when we were out, she wanted to be able to see around the chair to the other side. Since I thought that was pretty reasonable, we trained the two different positions depending on the situation and she does them consistently and reliably.
When we started doing rally, obedience and agility, I looked to see if there were any videos out with people in wheelchairs doing those sports. I think I found one video of someone in a chair doing rally and that was it. As a result, I have put a number of videos of us doing those things out on YouTube so that others who want to compete can see that it’s very doable and a great way to have fun with your service dog."
Linda
"I found leash weights, types, and lengths to be an added concern for me when working my dogs from my chair. To heavy and I could not hold on to them, wrong material and they caused pain, too long and they became wrapped up in the wheels, if I could not gather the leash up fast enough. I have tried many leashes over the years and found a simple six-foot cotton web training leash with a second handle I tie in the middle to be the perfect set up for me. I can loop the main handle over my handle bar if needed, and grab the second one to quickly take up slack and avoid entanglement. The leash setup also serves as a very versatile ever ready door pull."
Melissa and SD Shiloh
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