On Leash

I have a lot of students who struggle with leash manners with their dogs.  They expect to be able to walk along and never connect with their dogs in any kind of meaningful way.  They seem to think that marching around a city block at what amounts to a slow shuffle will fulfill their dog’s needs for exercise and mental stimulation.  Most dogs don’t agree that this is a desirable activity.  It beats sitting in the house, but it doesn’t meet the dog’s needs either for mental stimulation or for exercise. 

Let’s start out by looking at an on leash dog walk from the dog’s perspective.  To begin with, the two leggers go far too slow and far too consistently.  They go one methodical step at a time, piece by piece around the neighbourhood.  They never break out into a joyous bound, or stop suddenly to sniff the important stuff.  I imagine that if the dog were to operate the walk, you would leave your front door like a freight train running free down a mountain and then you would come to a crashing halt about two driveways down.  After a brief pause to check the pee mail, the dog would choose to zig and zag through the obstacles of the local yards, vaulting over obstacles and changing directions on a whim.  Imagine for a moment the most whimsical tour of your neighbourhood, where you are permitted the joy of looking into your neighbour’s trash bins, of hurdling the decorative fences and of stopping suddenly when the need arises.  You would pee at least four times, and you might defecate too.  Probably on the least weedy lawn along your route.  In short, a dog walk would be a dog “bounce, change direction, explore, go to the toilet, bounce again, run around, see things major event”.

I think most dogs start out every walk in the hope that we, the dog walking people, will someday “get it”.  Instead, every day, the people try and fit this free joyous spirit into a slow march of straight lines, scheduled stops and complete lack of interaction with the environment.  Walking the dog becomes a chore that we have to convince ourselves to do, for several reasons.  Firstly, few dogs naturally match our pace and few people are any good at matching their dog’s pace.  Secondly, people rarely do a good job of teaching the dog what we expect.  We are still delighted when the dog learns to sit at corners, but forget that corners and street crossing only makes up a very small part of the walk.  When the rest of the walk is made up of a constant tug of war between you and the dog, fighting over the pace and direction, this is not a pleasant recreational activity and it is no wonder that few people enjoy walking their dogs even though most folks feel they must for some reason do so.

In order to meet your dog’s needs for exercise and mental stimulation there is nothing that will beat an off leash walk in a country setting.  I well recognize that my friends in downtown Toronto and New York City do not have this luxury, but if I were to develop the optimal situation for my canine friends, it would be to give each and every one of them a half an hour to an hour off leash, walking with me, in a safe rural setting.  This does not mean that the dog will go out and run sheep or chase horses either; this means that you and your dog will travel for an hour or so, on foot, together or in the company of other people and dogs, and the dogs are permitted to bolt ahead and fall back, to sniff and to leap and return and check in with you.  To do this means that you must start early-preferably before sixteen weeks when the dog begins to be more independent and it means that you must teach the dog to check in regularly with you.  There are rare exceptions, but the majority of dogs can learn to do this and it is very mentally good for them to do so.

Dogs do need to learn to walk nicely on leash, and I teach that there are three rules for leash walking. 

1.     Putting the leash on is a commitment from the human to pay attention to what they are doing.  This includes paying attention to the dog, to the environment, to the world around you, to the dogs in your environment and being present at all times.  This does not happen if you walk and talk on your cell.  Or if you stop and engage with the neighbours. 

2.     A tight leash is a brake.  If the leash goes tight, then you must stop.  The difference between good brakes and bad brakes is how much tension you must feel before you stop.  In general, if the leash is not hanging directly below your hand, then it is too tight.

3.     Walk with direction and purpose.  There is nothing more annoying than accompanying someone who is wandering around and the dog knows this.  If you are walking purposefully, and you have a direction to go and a reason for going there, the dog will go with you quite happily.  On the other hand if you wander along, with no particular reason for going where you are going, the dog is going to go somewhere meaningful for him.  For most dogs, this means that going around the block is annoying.  You start out, you turn right, you turn right, you turn right, you turn right and you are back home again.  What fun is that?  There is no point for most dogs!  If on the other hand, you go out to the potty place, allow your dog to toilet, and then walk purposefully to the corner, stop, check in with your dog and then cross the street to the park where he can go off leash, then your dog is likely going to be willing to do that politely and in a controlled connected manner.

Yes, he is a service dog, but the rules still apply; the leash is loose so we can move forward!

Opps!  The leash got tight so we will need to stop!

When you walk your dog on leash, you have to have some sort of system to come to an agreement about what that walk will look like.  If you follow the rules above, and provide some appropriate off leash walking opportunities, then you can have pleasant outings together.  There ARE other systems, but the bottom line remains the same; you must commit to something if you are going to walk on a loose leash with your dog.

If you have been battling a pulling or lunging dog, you should know that it will take time to teach him to walk nicely on leash, and obliterating 100% of errors is unrealistic.  Saying that your dog will never ever pull on leash or lunge is like saying that you will never take a wrong turn in traffic or make a spelling mistake.  We are not perfect, but if we can be present with our dogs when we walk with them, then we can achieve great things together.

So You Would Like A Service Dog

D'fer!  My constant partner for the past 8 years or so.  So many things I would not have been able to do were made possible by this incredible dog.

Every week we get multiple requests from people who would like to train a dog to be a service dog.  The people contacting us are quite varied, but there are common threads of information that they are looking for.  Regardless of if you are a person with a disability, a person who knows someone with a disability and would like to train a dog to help a friend, someone who is just starting out in dog training who would like to consider working in the field of training dogs to help the disabled or someone without a disability who would like to take a pet out in public with them, you all need to know the same information.

At Dogs in the Park we are unable to help everyone who wants to train a service dog through our classes.  There are too many issues that surround service dogs that take up time in a regular training class and too few people locally to support a class specifically for service dogs.  There is enough demand however to support an annual seminar and we have now been offering such a seminar for over five years.  These annual seminars offer information both for those who are beginning their journey and those who have been training for many, many years.  We include information on access, laws, how to train your dog and tasks that your dog can do.  For this reason, we have developed this article to help people who want to train their dogs to assist them.  We are happy to respond to emailed questions on this topic but please read through the following questions and answers before emailing us and if you have a question that is not addressed then please feel free to contact us.  If you phone the office, please leave an email where we can reach you to respond to you.

Do you or the person you want to train for have a disability?

This question is the first question you need to answer before you can move forward.  In most jurisdictions, you cannot use a service dog in public unless you have a disability.  In each legal jurisdiction there is a specific definition of what a disability is.  In general, you are considered disabled if you live with a condition that limits your ability to carry out the activities of daily living.  Usually, The activities of daily living means you cannot go to school or work, or you cannot shop for your groceries, get yourself to your doctor or cook or clean.  This does not mean that you could do it, but you don’t like to, but rather that you are unable to do it.  If you do not have a disability, in North America, there is no way for you to legally take your pet with you out in public.

Do you have a condition that is best helped with a dog?

D'fer alerting.

Dogs have been used to help people with a very wide variety of problems, from autism to diabetes to mobility issues to psychiatric illness and beyond, but in every case the dog has to DO something.  In some cases having a dog who can interpret the environment for the handler and the handler can determine if they are seeing something real helps a handler determine when they are experiencing hallucinations and when they are seeing real things.  This is a filter that the person can take everywhere with them, but it is something the dog does; it is not just something that happens.  If you cannot think of what you do will DO, but only that you would like him to be with you, then your dog is not normally permitted to be out in public with you.  If you can think of something that can be done with a dog but that can be better done with technology, technology may be a better alternative for you to consider.

Do you have a suitable dog?

This sheltie is not a common breed used for service work, but he does a really good job!

The work of a service dog is challenging and often quite difficult.  Your dog must be able to enjoy changes of environment and footing, must be able to tolerate unexpected pats from strangers and accept grocery carts bumping into them.  They work in places that are not meant for dogs to go to, and they must do it without complaining, startling or becoming frightened.  If you have a dog who startles and becomes frightened when a truck backfires, or who barks at things like people who walk by while wearing a funny hat, then your dog is the wrong dog for the job, and you will spend more of your time addressing your dog’s needs instead of him helping you.  It is important to have someone to help you to determine if your dog is actually appropriate for the work-having a second pair of eyes to look carefully at your dog’s suitability is important.  A huge variety of breeds have been used for service work, from tiny Yorkshire Terriers through giant English Mastiffs, as well as a wide variety of mixed breeds, but each individual must be considered on his own merit.  You cannot simply say that you have had a dog of a certain breed who was perfect for service work and then randomly choose another dog of the same breed and expect to be successful.  Choosing the wrong dog is not fair to the dog and makes your job of training much more difficult than necessary.

Did your dog have appropriate early socialization?

This young dog is learning that she is safe on a tile floor in a public atrium, before she is 5 months old.

Most dogs cannot overcome a lack of socialization and go on to become confident, happy working service dogs.  Socialization for service dog puppies means the careful exposure of the puppy to everyone and everything you expect him to cope with as an adult and it happens before the puppy is 16 weeks of age.  If your pup was rescued out of a barn at 20 weeks, you might be able to teach him to cope with the world you want him to work within, but it will not be a fast or easy job.  If your dog missed early socialization, you must realize that you will need to spend more time and energy teaching him to accept the world than you may have the energy to commit.  If you have a puppy under 16 weeks, you really should be in a good puppy socialization class.

Does your dog have the appropriate training to help you?

Leash manners are important skills to have!  Training takes time, effort and patience and is often costly.

Service dog training can be divided neatly into two categories; public access and task training.  Public access training is all about leash manners and the ability to not touch things that your dog will encounter in public.  I like to think about service dogs as conspicuously invisible.  They must never bark at people or animals or things that startle them, or pick up food off the floor or solicit attention from the people he encounters when he is working in public.  Then your dog must also have the skills needed to help you; alerts for medical conditions, picking up items if you cannot or opening doors to let you through for instance.  It generally takes between ten months and two years to train all the behaviours that your dog will need, and until that training has occurred, your dog is not going to be helping you.

Do you require certification to take your dog out in public?

Certification is not required in most places, but you must know the laws of your community!

This question depends entirely on where you are.  You need to know the law where you are at any given time.  If you live in North Carolina and you visit Ontario, you would be covered by the laws in the community you are in at any given time, not by the laws of where you are from.  It is important for you to know the laws where you are living, but also the laws where you are going!

If you live in the United States, then you will not need certification for your service dog, but you may not have the right to bring your service dog in training with you as he learns.  The right to be accompanied by a service dog is covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but the right to bring service dogs in training is covered individually by each state.  You can find information about service dog in the Americans with Disabilities Act here:  http://www.ada.gov/

If you live in Ontario, where Dogs in the Park operates, you will need to know the information that is contained within Ontario Regulation 429/07 under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005, Accessibility Standards for Customer Service,  found at http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/source/regs/english/2007/elaws_src_regs_r07429_e.htm

If you live somewhere else, you will be governed by the local laws.  It is not the intent of this article to provide an exhaustive list of links to laws around the world, so you will have to look up your own laws locally and become familiar with them.

I have heard that my dog must be certified to have public access.  Is this true?

Please reread the above section on the law; it is going to depend on where you are and what the laws are relative to where you are.  Be aware though of organizations that will sell you certifications for your dog; most of these organizations are willing to take your money and print out a piece of paper.  You can do that yourself for the price of a little time and a piece of paper through your printer.

Where can I go to train to be a service dog trainer?

At the moment there are a few private programs that train people to be service dog trainers, but the truth is that most service dog trainers for programs come up through the ranks, working first in the kennels and then learning to train service dogs within the organization they are working for.  Other people begin privately training dogs for others based on their abilities as a dog trainer. 

Where can I send my dog to be trained as a service dog?

There are a wide variety of private programs that train your dog to be a service dog, but check your references carefully and be aware of programs that claim they can train your dog in under six months.  Training a dog properly requires that dogs be allowed the time to obtain and integrate the information that they are being asked to learn.

 Does my dog have to be able to do three demonstrable tasks to be considered a service dog?

D'fer will pick up items such as his leash for me if I am unable to bend over due to my disability.

 

No.  That is the criteria that the organization Assistance Dogs International (ADI, found at http://www.assistancedogsinternational.org/) has established for its member organizations.  ADI is a coalition of not for profit assistance dog organisations and has nothing to do with owners who train their own service dogs.  On the other hand, you dog must be able to do something that helps you and in many jurisdictions you may be asked to demonstrate that your dog is trained to assist you.  If you are just bringing your dog along because you like to do that or because you think it will be fun, that is not a service dog.

Will you train a dog to assist me at Dogs in the Park?

A dog in training at Dogs in the Park

We occasionally take clients on after they have attended our annual service dog seminar.  If you attend a seminar with us and you would like us to train a dog for you, we will consider taking you on as a client.  We choose the dogs we train for our clients; if you already have a dog we will not train that dog for you.  If you would like to take private lessons with us, you can do that with the objective of training your dog as a service dog, but we will not be doing the training in that case; we will be acting as consultants only.

How much does it cost to purchase, raise and train a dog from puppy hood to adulthood?

It can cost a LOT of money to prepare for, select and train a service dog.

This question depends entirely on how you go about doing that.  If you wanted us to train a dog for you from start to finish, including attending our conference, you might be looking at as much as forty thousand dollars USD.  If you are an experienced dog trainer with access to the right dog to start with, you can expect to spend as much as you might on a sport dog by the time they attain their second level of title (the equivalent of training a dog through his CDX or RX title). 

My school or employer won’t allow me to bring my dog to their establishment, or a hotel wants to charge me extra for having my dog with me.  Can you help?

We cannot provide legal advice.

Sorry, no.  You need to speak with a human rights lawyer in your area.  We do not keep a list of human rights lawyers; you will need to do your own research about that.

I need to know something that isn’t listed on this page.  Can you help me?

Yes!  If you have not found the answer you need here, please email me at sue@dogsinthepark.ca with your question.  If you call my office leave an email address so that I can get in touch with you.  If you wish to speak with me on the phone, I will be happy to do so for a fee; please email me for details.

ADDENDUM:
Recently a few people are very persistent in wanting to come visit me and speak with me in person about their service dog projects.  I take on very few service dog clients each year, and I only take clients who have been to my service dog seminar.  If you want to discuss your service dog project with me in person there are two ways to go about that.  You can EMAIL me and I will provide you with details about my professional fees to discuss your project on the phone or in person, or you can EMAIL me and outline specific questions which I will respond to at no cost if the specifics of your question are not addressed in this article.  I will respond to what I consider a reasonable number of questions at no charge by email.  I will not discuss service dog projects by phone or in person until I have been paid to do so. 

Over the past fifteen years, I have spent thousands of hours sharing my knowledge and understanding of service dogs with others via email and over the phone and in person.  I cannot do this any longer as I must make a living if I am going to continue to do service dog work at all.  I am able to help you with my blog and in a limited way by email, and I still contribute to a variety of email lists, yahoo groups and Facebook pages, but I can no longer spend hours on end on the phone or in person helping people for no fee.  While I appreciate how difficult it is to wade through the large picture of developing a service dog, I hope that you the reader will appreciate how I must limit my participation in your project at no charge.  I just cannot afford to do that any longer. 

CONSIDERING AN INVISIBLE FENCE? CONSIDER THIS!

Invisible fences are becoming more and more popular and in a few cases they are a very successful method for keeping your dog on your property.  In most cases though, this can go badly wrong.

Consider for starters that you are depending upon a boundary that the dog cannot see.  Invisible fences work best when they are the back up to a visible boundary.  This is why you start out with flags.  Most people take the flags away far too soon, and the dog is not exactly clear on where that boundary is or is not, meaning that they will get shocked more often than is strictly necessary for success.  When I recommend an invisible fence, I would put it along natural boundaries that are visible to the dog, such as a flower garden, along a driveway or lane, or along a row of trees.  I would not use a sidewalk or the street as a boundary for reasons I will outline below.

Consider that you often cannot control the degree of shock that the collar delivers.  If you really want to know what your dog is experiencing, put the collar on your upper arm with the electrodes against your skin on the inside of your arm.  Walk towards the fence.  Repeat that five or six times so that you are certain about the outcome.  There is a caveat.  This will hurt and it will hurt a lot.  Electric shock is one of the most intense sorts of pain we are able to deliver, and most collars are factory set to deliver a very intense pain.  

Consider what happens when your dog sees the kids coming home from school.  If he darts out meets the kids right at the boundary line, he may learn that the kids cause pain.  I have seen four cases where this happened and in one case the dog became so aggressive towards people that we could not safely live with him.  When looking for the cause of the shocks, the dog is not going to naturally gravitate towards his behaviour as the underlying cause of the pain.  He will look for clues about when he gets shocked.  He may decide for instance that cars, kids, other dogs, the mail delivery person, or the contractor who comes to install the air conditioner is the source of his pain.  Dogs in pain are much more likely to bite than dogs who are not, and if the dog decides that the contractor is the source of his pain, then the contractor is who he will bite.

Consider that you are depending on a piece of equipment that may not remain charged and may not work all the time.  If your batteries die and you don’t notice, your dog may approach your boundary and not hear the tone he would normally associate with approaching the edge of his yard.  Not hearing the tone, he will eventually test that boundary and then discover that the fence does not currently shock him.  This leads to a gambler’s effect.  When the fence is sometimes live and sometimes not, any time your dog approaches the boundary and he doesn’t receive a shock, he in effect receives a reward.  This means that he will start to gamble to try and figure out when he can win and when he cannot.  This means that in reality you are increasing your dog’s likelihood that he will try and test the fence, even if that means that some of the time he gets shocked.  The rule for using punishment is that it must occur every time that the dog behaves in the targeted manner, and when you use shock as a punisher, this is especially important.

Consider that your dog may learn that the equipment is what causes the pain.  If you do not condition the collar properly, your dog will learn that having equipment put on is going to create pain and they may become difficult to catch and also difficult to put other collars and harnesses on, or even to bandage if they are injured or ill.

Consider that other animals can get into your yard without penalty, and if those animals (foxes, skunks, raccoons, other dogs, children, adults, cats, coyotes, bears, wolves, deer, sheep, goats and pretty much anything else with feet in your neighbourhood) are aggressive or dangerous to your dog, he cannot escape.  This means that if a person comes into your yard with the intent to harm your dog he cannot leave unless he is willing to be shocked.

Consider that most pet dogs are breeds that were intended to stay close to us, and they don’t actually like being outside alone.  They want to do stuff with their people, even if that stuff is just laying close to you while you type on the computer.  Invisible fencing makes it easy to leave the dog out of doors unattended and able to learn nuisance behaviours such as barking at the fence line and ripping the siding off the house.

Mostly...dogs just want to be with their people!

Consider that if your dog sees a squirrel, another dog or a friend across the street and he breaks through the invisible fence, he may learn that the cost of roaming where he wants is a moment of intense unpleasantness.  If he is running towards something fun, he may consider the pain worth the gain.  Coming home is another story though.  Coming home means facing angry and upset people AND experiencing shock.  Thousands of dogs every year die because they broke through an invisible fence.

Considering the eight points above, you may wonder if there is ever a place where I would recommend an invisible fence, and how I would suggest using it.  For rural properties of five acres or more where you want to contain the dog in a specific component of the property, and where there are good visual landmarks, I would consider an invisible fence.  Why five acres?  Because I want the fence to be far, far from a road.  Because I want to be able to see when people are approaching so that I can bring the dog indoors when someone comes to the house.  I want permanent visual boundaries that can be seen even after it snows (tree lines, garden beds, decorative fences, laneways or livestock fences are all possible visual barriers).  I don’t recommend only putting the collar on the dog when he goes outside; I recommend keeping it on all the time.  I suggest that your dog should be accompanying you most of the time and should be in the house when you leave the boundary area.  If you need to remove the dog from the boundary area, take the collar off and either go through a physical gate or take your dog in your vehicle to get him out.  Even then, I have to say that I am not a huge fan. 

If you live in a covenant community that does not allow fenced yards, consider treating your dog as though you lived in an apartment.  Take him out on leash to toilet.  Teach a rock solid recall and a rock solid down stay.  Keep him with you more often than not.  When I compare the number of behaviour problems I see in dogs who live with invisible fences to those who live in apartment buildings, I have to say that I see far fewer dogs who live in apartments.  That says something profound about the life style of dogs who live in apartments.  They just don’t have the opportunity to experience the problems and pain that those who live with invisible fences do.