Service Dog

Volume 4, Issue 1

International Parti Poodle Gazette

January 2008

Pick up phone

SERVICE DOGS: THE INSIDE SCOOP
PART I

Author: Jillian Gartner

I am a Standard Poodle owner and service dog trainer living in Massachusetts. I fell in love with the breed nearly a decade ago and cannot imagine living without them. I started working with assistance dogs when I was eleven, but my reasons for choosing the program were that it was the closest place that would allow me to handle dogs and was a wonderful form of community service. I had never planned to be a service dog trainer or even have a large part in that community once I went to college and “found my calling.” As the time approached, the college I had chosen was the only one in the U.S. that granted degrees in cynology (the study of dogs), and they also happened to focus on the service dog aspect. The program they offered was excellent and well-rounded, so I elected to pack my bags and move to California.

The Assistance Dog Institute (http://www.assistancedog.org), located in the northern town of Santa Rosa, was even more than I had hoped for. The curriculum was exactly what I had tried to teach myself for so many years. Every professor had enormous amounts of experience in their subject and in many others, all having come from varied backgrounds with dogs and/or people with disabilities. The dimension that really got me was the passion. They all had it. They weren’t just making a living or really liking their job – the staff and faculty loved everything about the role they played in society: be it taking a puppy home for its first field trip, greeting a client who just drove hundreds of miles to receive their new partner, learning to use a wheelchair to improve a dog’s skills, or teaching new people how to go out and change the world. By the time I graduated, the passion had grown inside me as well, and I knew I’d always be a part of the assistance dog community.

Pick up cup

Since I was introduced to the world of assistance dogs, I have met many Poodles that were still in training or had already been placed and noticed traits that I had not previously associated with the breed – traits I personally would not want to live with. These may have been a result of genetics, raising/training, or expectations from their new partners. Regardless of how it happened, it is sad for me to see. If I ever need a service dog, I want a Standard Poodle with all the traits that made me fall in love with the breed in the first place. Thus, after spending eight months of school learning under the pioneer of the service dog movement, I am in the process of forming my own non-profit organization. American Poodles at Work (http://www.americanpoodlesatwork.org) will breed, train, and place Standard Poodles as service dogs for people with disabilities. My program’s focus is to provide Poodles who work, look, and act like the breed we all love. Due to allergies, many clients want a Poodle; others want them because of the breed’s reputation for brains and personality. Providing a dog that is atypical of the norm seems so unfortunate.

The purpose of this two-part article is to provide information about service dogs and how you can help. I hope the details covered here are of interest. It is based on personal experience and not found in many books. The topics included in Part I provide a little bit of background, a description of the Poodle suited for service work, and raising puppies for their future roles in society. Part II will cover training methods and tasks in more detail, how to match dog to client, and how you, a Poodle lover, can help the cause.

WHAT IS AN ASSISTANCE DOG?
Assistance Dog is a broad term that covers any dog that has been trained specifically to help someone who has trouble doing a task themselves. Guide dogs lead people who are blind or visually impaired avoiding obstacles and pausing at changes in elevation. Hearing dogs help people who are deaf or hard of hearing by alerting them to important sounds. Diabetic Alert dogs tell their owner when they sense a drop in blood-sugar, especially at night. Seizure Response dogs are trained to respond to a seizure by moving dangerous objects out of range, carrying medical information in their backpack, and providing physical and emotional support as their partner comes to. Service dogs act as the hands of a person with limited mobility, retrieving objects and flipping switches.

It is the role, training, and placement of the Service Dog that will be covered over the course of this two-part article.

Pick up plate

WHO MAY QUALIFY?
There are many people with congenital disorders (birth defects) due to genetics or complications in the environment or health of the mother at any point of the pregnancy. Babies may be born with cerebral palsy, spina bifida, or missing or deformed limbs. There are other diseases and disorders that generally are genetic or environmental, striking in youth, mid-life, or senior years . . . some examples would be multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, Parkinson’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (more commonly known as Lou Gherrig’s disease). Then there are injuries: wounded soldiers returning home, car crashes, freak accidents. Amputation, paralysis, and brain injury are increasingly common. For individuals who need assistance for some daily chores, a service dog can allow them to lead a life independent of human assistance, thus relieving a spouse of the additional duties of an attendant.

HOW DO DOGS HELP?
Service dogs can retrieve a hat blown off in the wind, a dropped cell phone, or a cane; they can fetch items from another surface such as taking a dish from the table and placing it in the sink, or getting a blanket for their partner’s lap. Some service dogs are also taught the name of specific items to find and bring back such as their leash and backpack, a remote control, or the car keys.

By standing on their hind legs, most dogs can reach a light switch to flick it on or off, and similarly learn to activate powered doors at major stores. By attaching ropes to the refrigerator and other doors, a dog can tug to “retrieve” and hold the door open until the wheelchair is through. The front paws can be used to push doors and cabinets closed.

Another very useful task for people in manual wheelchairs (able to push themselves rather than use an electric chair) is the “pull” command. When wearing an appropriate harness, service dogs can keep the momentum of a chair going while their partner takes a break. This is done by the handler grasping a handle on the harness by which they can steer, using their voice to control speed.

All assistance dogs offer a large amount of emotional support to their partners – they are constant best friends, always ready to help or snuggle and never criticize. Studies have shown that people who have dogs tend to have lower blood pressure and stress levels and may live longer and healthier lives. This is even more pronounced in the assistance dog community where that bond certainly is the difference between relying on other people forever or living independently.

Unfortunately, many members of our society are scared of, or at least reserved around, people with noticeable disabilities. Most people avoid eye contact and pleasantries, possibly stopping to help only if there is an obvious need for assistance. A dog operates as a fantastic ice-breaker, encouraging people to approach and learn about this special dog and how they help. Many schools are now teaching children about working dogs and how to react when they see one – and the children go home and teach their parents. Assistance dogs help to provide a community-awareness of disabilities thus leading to a sense of kinship among otherwise strangers.

CHOOSING A CANINE CANDIDATE
Although any dog with a suitable temperament can be a service dog, a good one will have excellent structure that will hold up for years of physical work and will be free of chronic issues such as ear infections, allergies, or diseases that require medications (all of which are thought to have a genetic basis in at least some cases). The purpose of a service dog is to make someone’s life easier!

Bring towel

The ideal service Poodle has a harsh coat that is resistant to dirt and does not mat if kept short – preferably slow-growing so that the amount of grooming does not need to be a factor that rules them out as a possible candidate. They are a moderate dog – no extreme angulation in front or rear but built as a working dog. Elbows should be placed under the withers to allow the dog to brace their partner for balance, getting up from a chair, or transferring out of bed. The stifles should be bent placing the feet just behind the point of rump, so that there is power enough to keep the wheelchair in motion while covering flat distances as well as providing assistance on small inclines – no cow hocks. The rear also needs to be put together such that repeatedly standing on the back legs to operate buttons and lights, pay cashiers, and retrieve items will not cause undue stress on the joints. Ewe necks affect a dog’s ability to pull a weight but, unfortunately, are very common in the breed . . . as long as the forequarters are otherwise sound, a ewe neck shouldn’t cause major trouble.

An interesting concept to note is neoteny – the retention of juvenile traits when adults still look and act similar to puppies. Breeds that are considered more child-like tend to share certain physical characteristics, including floppy ears with hardly any cartilage, square bodies and heads, big round eyes, low set and carried tails, soft light-colored hair. Examples of these breeds are Golden Retrievers (mainly show-bred) and Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. These neotenized dogs (whether purebred or mixed) are generally very willing to please, are social, and have “soft” personalities making them ideal service dogs.

As the ears and tails go up, skulls narrow and other traits change, dogs show tendencies of more prey-drive, aggression, and dominance. Other breeds (such as German Shepherd Dogs and Airedale Terriers, for example) are great workers, but they generally need a handler who is always in control and sets clear rules and expectations . . . they are less likely to consistently want to work for someone who may not have good timing for praise, not show physical enthusiasm, or can’t raise their voice above a whisper.

Poodles usually have floppy ears but high tail carriage: in the potential service dog, a lower tail may signify a desirable calmer temperament.

A service dog should be calm, steady, and reliable – they should not spook or show any aggression under normal circumstances . . . any lines that are known to be protective should be avoided, though a dog won’t necessarily be eliminated from training for passively protecting a person if the situation warranted it. They must be willing to please and take pride in accomplishing their tasks, content to ignore any prey that may be visible.

Pull open fridge door

BREEDING A LITTER
Health testing must be done on both parents, the results of which are very important but not a definite answer as to whether they will be bred. For service dogs, there are additional factors that come into play, especially temperament. A dog that can work for five good years before developing arthritis at age seven can still be a good service dog, but one who isn’t willing to please should never graduate as a guide even if they are healthy to the age of 13.

Hips should be tested using the Penn-HIP method, as that provides detailed information regarding what exists and what can be expected over the next few years. A dog whose hips receive a poor rating, but is without signs of joint trouble, may be a fine candidate for a client who doesn’t have an active life-style.

The dam may be relatively young – one-and-a-half to two years old or up to around six. With Penn-HIP testing, the results are generally accurate by about 16 weeks. Other testing can be accomplished around the first birthday or through DNA testing at any age. The benefit of using a young bitch is that after the litter, she can still be placed as a service dog . . . this is especially important since the best dog to breed is the one that has the best temperament for service work (the structure is important, but if her littermates and ancestors are decent, that should be enough – what she teaches her puppies about the world is the critical part). In this case, the bitch would be bred one or two times, and then matched with a client when she is three to four years old . . . meaning she can probably go to someone with an especially high level of disability because she is now older and steadier in demeanor and work ethic. This is very desirable as only a minority of dogs reach this level in the time a program is able to keep and train them, so the brood bitch can go to a person who may have been on the waiting list for a long time.

Go lie under table

The stud can be any age (tending toward three to nine years) but is generally never placed as a service dog – through they are typically fully trained and used as a “demo” dog to educate the public about how dogs can help people. The stud should possess the qualities you are looking to get out of the litter, with minor exceptions made due to testosterone levels . . . for example, they may be suitable even if they don’t always get along with other intact males, but their handler should certainly be able to get them to stop any aggressive behaviors and follow through on commands without use of physical corrections.

PUPPY HANDLING
Puppies should be handled from the minute they are born. The first business day after the puppies birth, puppy-petters are brought in to hold them. Dogs, like people, are born with countless neurons that will quickly die if not activated. The activation occurs by touching every part of the body and slightly “stressing” the puppy by gently tipping it in different directions. This should happen for each pup at least 20 or so minutes a day, though more is beneficial.

Hopefully, the genetics of the puppies will result in even-tempered adults even without early socializing, but studies conducted at the Assistance Dog Institute have shown that handling puppies as much as possible makes them significantly stronger in terms of problem-solving. The risk of parvo or distemper can be controlled to a large extent, making it a wiser decision (in many cases) to go for the puppy-petting program to exponentially improve the chances for each puppy to become an excellent helper. No dog should be released from the program until it is clear they will not be a good candidate – at least nine months, but up to around 18, if possible. It costs a lot of money and time to work with a dog that ends up being too fearful, which in turn can jeopardize a program that relies on grants based on the number of dogs they are able to successfully place.

PUPPY TRAINING
Around three weeks of age, puppies are taught to eat thickened formula and to follow a tapping finger to get their treat. Within a few days, the puppies start making conscious decisions, so training can begin. Using formula on a finger tip, puppies can be lured to sit, shake, lie down, go under an object, put front paws up on an object, and call for help (“speak”) if put behind a barrier (x-pen).

Put cup on counter

By week four, the puppies’ ears should be open, and they will start to anticipate the commands and recognize words with less use of the lure. Other commands are introduced including spinning in a circle, jumping up on a little table, waiting, and retrieving a soft toy. Next comes turning on lights and tugging doors open.

Soon puppies start going on short outings being carried in pouches . . . no petting is allowed by strangers but getting used to the sights, sounds, and smells of the city. While it’s true that there are health risks involved at this young age, it has proven to be a great way of introducing puppies to the big world while they are small enough that you can hold them securely without sending messages that there is anything scary. They are also at an age where everything is interesting, and they are seeking to learn the secrets of the universe.

As the weeks progress, the puppies’ repertoire expands quickly, encompassing 50 commands by the time they are a few months old. The lure is now gone from the old commands, replaced by a verbal command and perhaps a small hand signal followed by a moist treat and lots of praise. The puppies have large vocabularies, great self control, and the things they’ve learned are ingrained for life.

AS PUPS GROW
The puppies now need to spend the next year and a half being socialized and not allowed to develop bad habits whether they are placed in foster homes with puppy-parents or stay at the facility to continue training. Regardless, the main thing is for them to grow up to be healthy, sound dogs who will only need a few months to brush-up their skills before they are ready to be matched with a client.

Read Part II of this article in the next issue of IPPG to learn more about the advanced training and skills, the matching process, and how you can become involved.

Video clips:
Service Poodle goes under a table
S ervice Poodle helps remove a sock
Service Poodle brings hat to partner

Sometime this summer ('08), I wish to acquire a foundation bitch (puppy to about three years old) for my program that matches the description in this article for the ideal Poodle for service work.

My contact information is:

Jillian Gartner
PO Box 1933
Warren, MA 01083
(508) 471-0036
jillian.gartner@charter.net

SERVICE DOGS: THE INSIDE SCOOP PART I

SERVICE DOGS: THE INSIDE SCOOP
PART I