Mike’s Doghouse

It seems as though every time Mike and I get ready to start service dog specific training, something happens. He hurt his leg then Joella needed surgery on one of hers, and now I’ve broken one of my own! Will the fun never end?

At any rate, we are working with Mike on stopping his biting. He doesn’t hurt very often but will grab a shirt sleeve or pants leg and get skin, too. We are doing the “ouch!” and turning our back. I don’t allow the rough play anymore, either, which is hard for both of us to give up.

His scent-marking behavior is all but gone. He still marks Jo’s raised feeder every few days and recently found a new spot in the hall way after some things were moved around. Do I trust him to not hike a leg in public? Not yet, because we’ve not had a chance to get out there yet, dammit!

As we play, I use cues like “let me have it” and “get it” and others, getting him used to those terms. He releases an object easily which is a good sign.

Let’s see, what else? He’s going through a growth spurt but I don’t think he will be a big dog afterall. The last time we were at the vet’s, he still wasn’t 50lbs yet. If he reaches 70, I’ll be surprised. He’s a tall boy, just not filled out at all.

Oh, as for his hip injury, it was all soft-tissue like a strain or sprain. He had x-rays taken which were evaluated by an orthopedic vet who said all was great! Joella’s recovering slowly from her surgery. She has arthritis fairly bad in her back legs and we’ve started pain management now. Some days she is a puppy, other days she doesn’t want to move. I can understand that.

If you’ve followed along, you know that Mike is to be trained to be a Service Dog. He is to “replace” Joella, my current SD who is 8.5 yrs old. Joella is having some difficulty with her back legs and Tuesday (April 21st) she will be having surgery on one of her ankles.

Since Joella will be needing all of my mental attention, Mike’s SD training is on hold for a few weeks. It is Spring and he is happy to be outside playing right now so it will all work out. Starting over won’t bother either of us in the least. He and I start Basic Manners II the day we bring Jo home so we’ll still be working on that.

We’re thrilled Joella won’t be needing the more extensive knee surgery we all thought she’d have. We were concerned we’d not be able to keep Mike calm around her. He likes to sit on Jo which would not have been a good idea. Even with this surgery, we’ll still be keeping him quiet, but not as much as with the other surgery. It may be a good chance to work on SPOT outside of the kitchen, eh?

The “put the bone on the nose” trick didn’t work. It may someday but neither of us (me and Mike) are interested in pursuing it. So what we will work on is “Where’s your tail?” Basically, it is getting him to go in a circle. He’ll do this already. I need to fine tune it some and tack on the cue. I think this will be funny as heck since he has a nub.

Teaching Joella her main trick was easy since all I had to do was add a cue to something she already did. She does a “Dead bug” where she lays on her back. She sleeps in that position a lot, too. So all I had to do was say “Do the Dead Bug” and she’d roll over. Mike doesn’t have anything he does like that. I’ve been watching him, trying to come up with something but, nope. The only thing he does really well is when he is focused and sitting, he sits so far upright, it looks as if you could knock him backwards by touching his nose. Of course, you can’t, but that’s how upright he sits. I looked at that from all angles and couldn’t come up with something to make it into. Basically, its a SIT and nothing more.

Meanwhile, Mike knows DOWN finally. We are working on OFF. He’ll do a WAIT for a long time. He put himself in his SPOT the other day. I praised like mad but his attention was on his food bowl up on the counter. House training is still going. He came to me tonight (Lorna must’ve forgotten to latch his crate). I petted him and finished what I was doing but by then it was too late. He’d made a mess in the kitchen. I let him out the back door while I cleaned it up. He did tell me, though. I thought maybe he was just saying “My door was unlatched!” but now I know better. He’ll go into his crate when Lorna opens the gate to the bedroom and says “Time for bed”. If he is full of himself, he’ll still be running around but if he is ready, he goes right into his box. We still have the small crate in the bedroom for him and the Big Boy Box in the living room. That’s where he stays when we go out.

I also just updated the command/cue list. It is in a spreadsheet in two different formats:

Commands.ods (OpenOffice spreadsheet)
Commands-xls.xls (Microsoft Excel)

I ordered Mike his first cape from SitStay.com.

(bigger images, and more when I get them uploaded, can be found in Mike’s photo section)

I have ordered enough patches so that now I have: two “Do Not Pet” patches, two “Service Dog” tab patches, and one “In Training” tab patch. I also ordered this stuff called Rhino Glue so I wouldn’t have to sew. The side pockets are smaller than the dog backpacks we’ve tried so I don’t think it will be awkward looking while empty. They still look like they could hold more than just a bit of change. Joella’s cape is the basics model and served her well for many years. Just recently the clip on the chest/belly strap broke. It looks as good as new despite the front strap that she chewed through just days after we first got it.

The capes are made by the same company (Wolf Packs) and have the same material. One difference (besides pocket size) is that Mike’s doesn’t have the reflective tape. I think I saw some somewhere online but I can’t remember where. The other difference is that instead of a clip on the chest/belly strap, it has hook-and-loop! It will take us a while to figure out how to get it just right but I love that I won’t have to worry about getting his long fuzz in the clip.

I’ll let you know when I get around to putting the patches on.

There are so many different acronyms out there for all sorts of things disability related: PWD, ADA, SD, SDIT, the list goes on and on.

Today I found a list of a lot of them. Fred Cisin is a funny man which is why I like him so much. The list on his site is huge-ish and includes some esoteric (read: weird) terms. Here’s a sample:

PWD = Person with a disability
PWD = Portuguese Water Dog
PWDWD = Person With a Disability With a Dog
PWDWSD = Person With a Disability With a Service Dog
PWDWPWD = Person With a Disability With a Portuguese Water Dog
PWDWABA = Person With a Disabilty With an Attitude

The full abbreviation/acronym list

Fred also has a DIY (do it yourself) certification plan.

You can check out all of Fred’s SD info on the DogEars section of the site.

A dog is considered a Service Dog (SD) when, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the animal can do one or more trained tasks that benefit the person with the disability (PWD).

(Keywords there are TRAINED and BENEFIT. But more on that later.)

Some states have Service-Dog-In-Training (SDIT) laws which offer support for dogs that are still training to be a SD. These laws offer the chance for the trainer/handler to take the dog out into Real World situations to better train the dog. I am lucky to live in a state that has an excellent SDIT law (same access as SDs). This means that I can take Mike anywhere I would take Joella even though he doesn’t know any SD tasks. But there are some common sense things that any SDIT handler/trainer should follow. These include safety reasons, health reasons, and hygiene reasons. This is why Mike does not go places. He’s not house trained yet. Reliable recall, loose leash walking, doing a solid down or stay – that means nothing yet if he can’t do the most basic of manners.

A friend of mine (coughElenacough) reminded me that Mike should not be out yet as a SDIT (meaning wear a cape). She’s right. The only place we have gone with the cape on was Waffle House a few weekends ago. He was only in there for perhaps two minutes tops. In Lorna’s pocket were some paper towels and some Clorox wipes for just in case. I took him in for several reasons. Topmost was to see how he reacted to so many new things at once. I was looking for fear or reluctance. What I got was excitement and a total lack of fear. If he were house trained, he’d be going out on every day I could manage it. He is at the age where he should start learning the basics of public behavior. But until we get him house trained, he won’t be going. Was I wrong to take him out into public wearing a cape? Perhaps, but I won’t lose any sleep over it. I had already spoken to the manager of the restaurant and gotten permission to bring Mike in. Not that I would need permission, but with his lack of bladder control, I thought it best to get it.

We had to run an errand today and we took Mike with us.

First stop was Waffle House in Weaverville. It is our version of “Cheers” ’cause everyone knows our names. We took Joella’s cape and put it on Mike. Funny as heck! It sat way back but, surprisingly, didn’t overlap underneath all that much. We took him in and sat in the chairs against the window. Basically it was to just immerse him in the situation, to see how he reacts, and to have fun. He wanted to go everywhere and see everything and everyone so I had to keep a grip on his collar. He did very well. He actually laid down at one point but got right back up again. We were really surprised at how well he did. But he is only 5 mos old, ya know, so he was only inside for a few minutes. We’d brought him a chewy snack for while he waited in the car.

Next up was Home Depot. This was without the cape just so he could be a puppy in a new situation. We let him explore and experience everything. Lorna took him for longer walks around the store and he did great. We need to work on “loose leash walking”.

Finally we went to PetSmart. We needed to get a portable bowl for the car (that and Mike had been panting heavily in Home Depot) and we wanted to see what they had for Callie, our oldest cat. She needs a bed to lay on in front of the stove. Anyway, Lorna had Mike’s leash for almost the entire time we were in the store. Mike was feeling braver and definitely wanting to pull on that leash. Holy cow, that pup is strong! Definitely need to do more leash work.

Speaking of strength, when we were at the vet’s Friday, we weighed Mike. He was, if we remember correctly, 35.6 lbs! That means he gained almost 4 lbs in just two weeks. Good boy!

I dislike the term “commands” but that’s what they are. With Joella, it is always a “request” that Her Highness then determines is worthy of fulfillment. She will do what I ask/tell her in terms of SD work. Basic obedience, though, is iffy at best. It is a mistake I will not be making with Mike.

Somewhere, I have a longer list of the commands Jo knows. Borrowing heavily on Marley’s list, here’s Joella’s SD commands:

1. Let me have it
2. What have you got
3. Get it
4. Bring it here
5. Get the other one
6. Get my shoes
7. Where’s Lorna
8. Back up
9. Get behind
10. Get your leash
11. Get in truck/car
12. Get in the house
13. Go around
14. Turn around
15. Look at me
16. Touch it
17. Open it/Pull it
18. Get Under
19. Take it

And her obedience requests:

1. Up*
2. Off
3. Down
4. Lay down
5. Out
6. Outside
7. Hurry up
8. Are you done*
9. Wait
10. Sit
11. Stay
12. Easy*
13. Leave it
14. Drop it
15. Gimme a kiss

(* are those that are also SD related)

I know there are others but that’s all I can think of right now. Mike will be taught all of those plus some others. Joella stinks on her recall (coming when called) and her Stay is almost as bad. Mike and I will be going to a series of dog classes starting this January. First there will be 5 of the Puppy Obedience classes followed by Basic Manners 1 and Basic Manners 2 (both are 6 weeks each, I think). Along the way, we’ll work on SD stuff but I want to make sure Mike has a solid obedience/manners footing. Mike knows “sit” and we are working on “down” and “out of the room” (used after meals). He knows “outside” means to go outside but he’s not made the connection that it means to do his business. He still is not house trained, dangit!

I have made a spreadsheet of the above commands with the word/phrase, what it means, and the reasoning behind it.

Commands list in OpenOffice.org format (.ods) and Commands list in MS Excel format (.xls). Let me know if you need it in another format; OpenOffice.org saves in several others. I will update the spreadsheets as Mike learns more or I remember more of Jo’s list.

If all goes well, Mike will grow up to be my Service Dog (SD). I live in a state with a great Service Dog In-Training law which will allow me to take Mike anywhere with me as long as he is fully house trained and obedient. Just like a “real” SD, Mike is not allowed to disrupt. I don’t expect to take Mike out until he is at least 6 mos old.

In the meantime, he and I will do regular dog training. We’ll be starting sometime in January by taking a Puppy Obedience Class with A Good Dog’s Life dog training school. After that, we’ll start the Basic Manners Class. All dogs should have some degree of training. It’s for their own good and safety. The owner learns how to communicate with their dog and the dog learns what his/her boundaries are.

Along the way, Mike will also be learning the basics of some of the future tasks he’ll be doing. Already he is learning “let me have it” (give me whatever it is in your mouth). All our dogs learn this anyway but for Joella and soon Mike, it is also used for when I want them to release the object they’ve just picked up for me.

I am an avid fan of clicker training. To work properly, teaching a task begins with breaking it down into the smallest steps, teaching those steps, then combine them. “Get it”, “bring it here” and “let me have it” will become the retrieve task. Even the step of “get it” could be broken down further by identifying specific objects. “Get my shoes” is Joella’s command for retrieving my shoes from another room. “Get it” is usually used for something the dog already knows I want.

It really is much simpler than it sounds. Stick with me and Mike throughout this process and we’ll learn/relearn it together.