Training Your Own Service Dog: What You Need to Know

Training Your Own Service Dog: What You Need to Know

 Training your own service dog is not an easy task--nor is it to be taken lightly. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does allow for handlers to train their own service dogs, but they are held to the same standards as organization-trained serviced dogs.

The question on many people's minds is which is a better choice and to me, it depends on the person. There are a lot of organizations that raise amazing dogs--and dogs that are trained from birth and have mother's chosen for their temperament usually have a higher success rate, but depending on the organization, getting a service dog becomes pricey and there's a long wait time. What about training your own dog? Well, if you've never worked with dogs, it might not be the best idea. You need to understand the basics of teaching your dog to act in public to doing tasks on command. There are some Internet website resources, but it takes a lot of time and effort, but the good part is that your dog starts to learn with you and your disability.


So how does your owner-trained service dog qualify as a service dog? Well, according to the ADA, the dog must be housebroken, have public access skills, and to be able to perform a task. When they are referring to a task, they mean a skill or cue that will aid a person when their condition worsens or when they need extra help. For instance, many people have their dogs pick up items when they drop them, open doors, let them know when the doorbell rings, and other tasks to help them with their daily routine. Anything that just requires the dog to just exist is not considered a task. For example: carrying medicine and comforting someone by their presence (this does not include pressure and distraction cues).

Risk. There is a high risk that your service dog will not be up for the job--especially if you get the dog as a puppy. I adopted Cash (I thought he was 4) at 8 1/2. He has a very temperate personality. He is not easily frightened and adapts to situations perfectly. He listens very well and is not loud. The reason why he makes the perfect dog to train is that he reacts to me so well plus, he acts very well in public. But how did I know this? I was around service dogs AND I had spent time with him before adopting him. With Cash, I can take him to performances, dinner, church, and he will lay under whatever I cue him to and go straight to sleep. Sometimes during a performance, he might get startled, but when I tell him to go to bed, he will go right back to sleep. Even when that happens, he still is quiet. This is what you want your dog to be able to do while in public. I am still working on him walking right next to me, but he is doing very well with it. It's about patience.

So how are you training him?

I am training him using clicker training. So far, I have a laundry list of commands that I want to teach him. The first major cue I trained him (other than the basics) was to sit on my lap when commanded and bring me my emergency medicine. The lap command is used to apply pressure to my lap during sever panic attacks and psychogenic seizures. This technique causes my brain to start focusing on him and not the anxiety, but also restricts me from wandering off or focusing on something dangerous. I have started working with him to bring a laminated note to whomever I point to give them important emergency information if I cannot talk. I also plan to teach a lot of other techniques for PTSD, Psychogenic seizures, Anxiety, and low blood pressure. Even with my ideas in place, I have had to create ways to "shape" these commands into cues he understands. If you do not understand shaping, I highly suggest that you read up on it on Karen Pryor's website. Here are a few of her articles on the subject: Shaping Your Way to Success, The Ten Laws of Shaping, and Shaping Success.

Here are some links to my favorite Service Dog related articles and websites:

Choosing the Right (Service) Dog
FAQ: Service Dog Laws
Service Dog Training Costs
Tasks vs Work
FAQ-ADA Service Dog Laws
PHRA-Service Dog Laws (Pennsylvania)
Service Dog Laws by State
Karen Pryor Clicker Training


Service Dog Organizations
And a link to my favorite Service Dog Training Organization, Susquehanna Service Dogs. If you live in Central Pennsylvania, please consider donating to them--time or money. They are an amazing group of people and taught me so much. They have a list of items that they most often use and need on their website, which I will link below. Also, if you use Purina Pro Plan, please consider cutting out the weight circles and sending them to them so they can get money through Purina. Every bit helps!

Susquehanna Service Dogs

Cash's Diet So Far... And How Shelter Life Failed Him

When we first picked Cash up at the Lancaster SPCA, I knew he was underweight, but I did not realize how underweight. The next day, when we took him to see the vet, they weighed him at 50 lbs. If you do not know the average weights of labrador retrievers, the average female labs is between 55 lbs and 70 lbs and for, males between 60 lbs -80 lbs. You could see the entirety of his rib cage sticking out. When they adopted him to me, I was told to fill out some paperwork, that he should get some good food, and that the weird yellows scabs on his back would just come off with a good bath.

My experience with the Lancaster SPCA? Not very good. When he came home with me, I realized that he was not really eating. We tried everything until we decided to purée some chicken and heat it in the microwave. He loved it. I started to add different food with the chicken. I bought a dog food only food processor to grind up his dog food to add to the mixture and then finally Pedialyte. He would eat this meal up. After almost a week, I had finally moved him up to eating solid dog food. There were a few times he did throw up, but most of the time it was not food, just digestive enzymes.

Food Cash Would Eat The First Week*

Puréed Chicken (to a liquid) and warmed up

Ground Purina Pro Plan Focus Sensitive Skin and Stomach Formula

Pidalyte (Rite Aid Brand Equivalent) 

*It is important to note that I am not veterinarian, but I did consult with professionals and I did adapt what I was told to what Cash would eat. In addition, just like a human with an eating disorder, dogs that are/had been starving should be introduced to meals slowly. They should have small meals throughout the day so that their bodies are not trying to digest too much at once. 

Days went by and Cash would be more and more eager to eat so I decided to slowly introduce solid food into his diet and it worked. He does take longer to eat it, but it worked. He is now back on a solid diet and even though it takes him a while, he seems to be enjoying it. When he went back to the vet due to his digestion system being a little off (mostly his #2 schedule), they put him on I/D dog food for a healthy digestion system. I'm not sure if it is working since he's only been on it for a little while, but only time will tell

Now how much did he weigh at this visit? 58.7 lbs. That is a huge difference in a little more than a week. I was so excited that all the work that it was making a difference. His entire attitude had changed and you could see it in his face. When I saw him, I knew I needed him and I didn't know why, but now I know, he needed me just as I need him. 

And now for the official weigh in/weight gain photo:

Day 1 of Retraining

As some of you might know, Cash was trained in a way that causes fear in him with certain commands and he rarely looks up at you. Now that he is eating solid food, I started retraining him to reassociate the negative associations with positive ones. I started with sit and just attention. With sit, I tried using the verbal and hand signal together and then moving the food away from him as a type of 'reset,' but he must have been trained not to follow the food. I had to call him to come to me in order to get him to stand up if the command stand wouldn't work. (His ability to listen to commands comes and goes). I realized that in order to go any further with his retraining, we needed to focus on attention and associating him being an equal with me. I started with every time he looked up at me, I'd click and treat. Much like the focus problems of a puppy, he was not looking at me--in his case, he didn't feel comfortable looking up at people--almost in shame. It was similar to the two times he threw up and looked at me like I was about to hit him. I gave him a good head scratch and snuggle that time. I will most likely try to start with that next time and continue to reassociate the skills he knows with good thoughts. 

Training Thornwald taught me so much about taking care of dogs and what  capable of as a person. Cash needs me and he's capable of great things. I'm thinking that he'd be a great therapy dog for retirement homes once he reassociate said training. He smart, sweet, and lovable.