Service Dogs!!

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I kind of have to disagree, I was once almost attacked by a pack of dogs that got out of someones yard......and a big black dog just kind of came out of the trees(not sure if he was part of that group or just a random dog walking around) but he stood in front of me and growled at the other dogs until I was able to get a safe distance away. I think it takes more then the intelligence level of a 3 year old child to do that. When it comes to things like crossing streets and such they certainly are not perfect, but then animals have not nessisarly adapted to the human environment.

Thanks!

There is no law saying you have to have a service dog, and the best example of that is guide dogs. Despite being around for almost a hundred years the vast majority of blind people still do not use guide dogs. I have heard that only about 20-30% do. And even those that do have them do not use them all the time. There are times when it simply is not practical or appropriate to have a dog with you, and there are places were service dogs are not allowed to go. They cannot go into food preperation areas, they cannot go into sterile areas, like operating theatres and the like in hospitals. They can also legally be excluded from some other places, churches and other places of worship are an example in the US. In Australia they can legally be excluded from zoo's, in the US they can be excluded from certain parts of zoo's, places where the people have direct contact with the animals.

When I was at high school there is no way in the world I would have been willing to use a service dog. I did all I could to pretend that I am normal and it was not until I was in my late 20's that I even considering the benefits that I would obtain from a dog, but that had to be the right dog for me. I cannot stand dogs barking and would freak if my dog did bark, she has never barked, not even when off duty, playing and the like. I also could not cope with a dog who ever jumped up on me, got on the furniture and the like. She does lean into me to help with my meltdowns, but does not put her paws on me. I love her and can lie on the floor with her for hours on end, but I need my space away from her. I will never understand how people have dogs on their beds or the like. I guess that is what is so different from my dog to other dogs, in that I need her to be able to be a well behaved dog at all times no matter what, not just when she is working and that also meant that I had to wait so much longer for a dog, as they had to find the right one for me. I needed a dog that naturally did not bark, that did not ever try to jump on people, that really was incredibly laid back. The fact is there is a purpose and place for all dogs and what suits one person will not suit another. My dog would not suit most dog obsessed people as she would not interact with them in the way that they want. Matching the dog and person is the most important part of any relationship.

You are talking about a dog interacting with other dogs. We do not have the ability to communicate with dogs at incredibly high levels and have even less ability to do so with most other species. My dog can calm the most aggressive and out of control dogs, she is a canine mediator to some degree. There are some people who just ooze calmness when they walk into a room, that nothing seems to be able to aggravate that even the most angriest person is able to be calm aroud them. My dog is like that with other dogs. But that is her being able to read their langauge. I cannot read dog langauge the way she can, and even the best dog behavourists in the world will never be able to communicate dog the way dogs can. Asking a dog however to interpret human behaviour and needs is a totally different thing. There brains do not operate the way ours do and to expect them to think and prioritise things the way we do is niave. Sure you can train a dog to know that when an alarm goes off to say a child is not breathing it has to go to and tell the parents and it will get a milk bone for doing so. It does it to please you, because they like pleasing you and because it gets a treat for it. But it does not and nor can it understand that if it decides to sleep, to have a scratch or to chew on a toy and not to notify the parents at that particular moment one time that the person will die. They cannot understand that their failure to alert will result in a person dieing, that is not something a dog can think of and plan ahead for. The fact is there will be times when something else will be a higher priority to them, than earning praise, a pet or a milk bone. Expecting a dog to understand traffic and to see when people are waving through the windows to wave someone on is niave and stupid. Sure they can understand that that car is big and if it is going fast it may hit me and given how big it is, I might get hurt, but it cannot understand stopped cars that may suddenly start going, cannot judge the flow of traffic, etc, etc. THey are dogs that think like dogs and can only ever think like dogs. They do not and cannot think like people, and while they are incredibly specail creatures that do a great deal to help alot of people it is important that we do not make them out to be able to do things they cannot do, and give people false hope. I respect that parents in particular will not leave any stone unturned in an attempt to help a disabled child, but the fact is while a dog is great it is not able to save someones life to the level that some people need. I respect that many carers really do need someone or something there so they can at least go into another room, and while there are things a dog can do, the fact is you cannot expect them to do so 110% of the time and that is what is needed. They will make mistakes and when they do the person will die and that is not fair, to put on the dog, the carer or the disabled person themselves. The fact is there are some people who really do need 24/7 care and the community needs to find a way to provide that, instead of expecting other creatures, ie, dogs to do it for them. Lassie does not exist, it was a figment of someones imagination and was not even played by the same dog, as they could not train the one dog to do all that they needed it to do. What I have a problem with are the lies that programs tell to get people to pay them money for a dog and while the dog may be specail and may do many things it cannot read minds, and yet it is being made out that that is what these dogs can do. Tell the truth and I wont have a problem with what the programs are doing. People need to be able to make fully imformed decisions about what if any role a dog can play in their lives. They can be incredibly specail creatures and do a great deal for many people, but they cannot save someone, and nor can they understand that if they make a mistake a person could die.
http://www.iaadp.org/lassie.html

Yes I am aware of all that, but I dont quite see what that has to do with intelligence.....of course dogs and humans do not think alike so a dog is not going to interpret danger the same way and can not be fully depened on to save someones life. But I think they do much more then acting on instict or training.

There is no doubt that unconditional love can do a great deal to help someone, that does not and will it make a dog a service dog. What you do have in the US which is needed in other places in the world is Emotional Support Animals. These are pets, primarily for people with mental health issues that have a right to live in no pets housing. They do not have a right to go to public places with you, although with the permission of the place concerned it would be possible, but they do have the right to live in no pets housing, and so an apartment complex that has rules in place in regards to animals and the like does have to allow such an animal in there. Having said that if you do not already have the animal and you want to say get a dog, and they would allow small dogs then you would be very unlikely to be allowed to get a really large one. It has to be a reasonable accommodation. If you already had the animal and were moving in then them saying the animal cannot come when it is an emotional support animal would be wrong, but for them to say we will accept you getting an emotional support dog that is under a certain size or weight limit is going to be seen as reasonable by the courts.

http://www.servicedogcentral.org/content/ESA
http://www.servicedogcentral.org/content/ESA-housing
http://www.bazelon.org/LinkClick.aspx?f ... &tabid=245

Well hell I could just get a dog or some other animal and just live somewhere that allows pets, lol I am not big on going through any sort of legal process even for something like that.

Totally incorrect statement. Dogs have the intelligence of dogs, not people.

I agree that service dogs are not for everyone. All dogs are a huge commitment, but with someone with a disability caring for a dog can be especially challenging, and you definitely need to take into account all of the work that goes into caring for one. They are a lot of work and require the owner to take an active role in their training for the rest of their life.

What an emotional support animal allows you to do is take it with you in public areas and keep that pet in buildings that would otherwise not allow animals. If you are able to up and move into an apartment that allows pets, good for you, but that's something that for a lot of people is easier said than done.

The only people I know who have emotional support animals have problems with anxiety, and the animals (bunnies) actually do a lot for calming them down and decreasing their panic attacks. It's kind of amazing what sort of calming effects animals have on people.

I would probably like that dog! I went to a daycare with a dog like that I can't stand dogs barking either, I don't mind if it's once in a while, but I get really annoyed if it goes on for a long time.

It is true that dogs have the intelligence of dogs and not people, but when programs make out that these dogs automatically know how to keep a 3 year old safe and a 3 year old can safely go anywhere at anytime without an adult, because the dog tied to the child will know exactly what to do in all situations then you have to come to some way of trying to describe a dog in relation to a human. You do not put a dog in charge of a child and yet every single one of the autism service dog programs do exactly that, the dog is supposedly there to control the child, to tell the child what to do, to stop the child from doing things, for reading the child's mind and the rest of the human societies mind. This is also the issue that arises when they decide that they these same said children should take the dogs to school. The parents have passed a public access test with the dog, withou the child even been there and then they propose to put the child and kid in a classroom alone around a bunch of preschool children sometimes and say the dog knows what to do it was trained. No dog operates on auto pilot for 6 hours a day, a dog is going to need to toilet, have a drink, rest, etc and no 3 year old can control that dog. The way I see it is if and when the child can pass a public access test with the dog, without any parent, or other adult or even child being around them, and they can totally control the dog through that test then the dog can go to school, but until that time it should not have public access rights unless the parent is there to control the dog.

I may be making very sweeping generalisations about dogs by comparing them to human intelligence, but I can say that my generalisations while totally not appropraite are a lot more accurate and appropraite than those that say that a dog can control a 2 or 3 year old child without any adult intervention and can know exactly what to do to keep a 2 or 3 year old child safe at any given time. I will compare a dogs intelligence to a 3 year old any day than compare them to a fully competent adult, which is what every single autism assistance dog program does. I may be doing something innacurate, but it is more accurate and more ethical to make the statements I make than what these programs are making.

The fact is while dogs are incredibly creatures they are only dogs, they always require the care and attention of a competent adult to direct them and control them, and they will never be for everyone. It is the constant rip off of parents, being told a dog can save a child's life that I have a problem with, and how to get that bought under control is my question. It is also not just happening with children, in the US you also have adults with cognitive (intellectual) disabilities also being tied to dogs, and the dogs are supposedly knowing exactly what to do. There has been a case in the US in which a woman was tied to a dog and the dog got distracted and she pulled under a moving train, as she could not get the leash off herself. I myself have had kids pulled by these autism tether dogs they were tied to and come running after my dog. Sure the parent did have a leash in their hands, but the dog got distracted and pulled it out of their hand, and the poor kid was being dragged along the floor with the dog running at full speed across a shopping centre to my dog. The kid got pulled into furniture and the like and was hurt, and the parents just came and got the dogs lead and kept on walking without any regards for what had just happened. And then people say it is wrong for such children to be tethered to a competent adult. Any body who needs to be tied to something for their own safety has a legal and above all ethical right to be tied to a competent adult and not an animal.

Interesting, I guess it depends on what types of organisations you go to to get your dog. I know at the Seeing Eye and several other schools for Guide and Hearing Dogs that you are required to take a several month intensive course teaching you how to care for and train your dog before they hand it over to you. It is very, very possible for you to fail that course, and they are very picky about who they give the dogs to. With people who train their own dogs, obviously they don't get that sort of intensive programme.

I had a friend in university who had a brother with autism. They bought him a German Shepherd to be a service dog, got him as a puppy, did very little training with him, and then were surprised when he turned out aggressive. The brother was pretty low-functioning and was pretty aggressive himself, so I'm not sure what they were expecting in a service dog. They ended up having to get rid of him because he bit someone. Honestly I think that in order to certify your dog to be a service dog, you should be required to take a course with a certified trainer. I think it's a bit irresponsible for someone with no experience in training service dogs to train one on their own.

I think really the main problem is that people see and hear how amazing service dogs like guide dogs are and assume from that that dogs can do anything. Guide dogs are very, very amazing, but I don't think many people know just how much work and selective breeding it takes to make those dogs. I don't know what the percentage is of dogs that don't make it all the way through the Seeing Eye programmes, despite being selectively bred for that very job and getting such intensive training since birth, but it is a pretty high number. I think that if people actually understood how hard it is to get those "super dogs" to be so amazing and well-trained, that they would be really turned off from getting a dog. They think that if those dogs can lead the blind, then surely they can help with my son/daughter, but they don't realise that dogs don't just come like that.

I still think it's unfair to say dogs are intellectually 3 year olds. They're animals, amazing animals who have so many capabilities that humans can't even begin to imitate, but still animals, and animals require care and work and are very, very different from people. I think that dogs are really anthropomorphised way too much in our society for people to really get their heads around that fact properly.

The best guide/seeing eye dog programs with their very selective breeding and raising and training programs only have about 50% of the dogs make the grade. Despite all that they do, they have incredibly high failure rates. I have a guide dog from one of the worlds top guide dog schools. The level of qualification of the trainers is also incredibly high and something that you do not get in other programs. They usually require a four week on site training course and they are not giving these dogs out to children, they are handing them out to competent adults, who have not only been trained in how to use the dog, look after it, etc, etc but who also have the ability to look after themselves. The biggest mistake though is that people give the dogs credit for things they do not do. The dogs do not decide when to cross the road, the person does. They cannot teach a dog to look both ways and decide when to cross a road. They do ATTEMPT to teach them to be wary of moving cars, but that is all, and NO guide/seeing eye dog program any where in the world fails a dog for not being able to do that. It is an added extra. The blind handler, MUST be able to use their hearing and any residual vision to judge the flow of traffic. The guide dog does not know where to go, it is being given directions. Yes it knows left and right, yes it knows find the door, seat, counter, bus stop, etc, but it does that by generalising those things. I have to know where to go to give the dog directions on how to get there. Sure over time my dog knows the places I go to regularly and has learned find the supermarket, find the library, etc, etc. But I can't put her in a strange city and tell her to find the library, she cannot read a map and know where to go. I have to know how many blocks, how many steps, etc, etc to be able to navigate us there. The use of GPS devices is really useful for that. My dog is aware of making sure that I do not hit my head and that is amazing in terms of how low to the ground that she is, she is aware of leading me around obstacles, pot holes, etc, but she is not a mind reader and she certainly does not decide when to cross the road. All of our traffic lights here have had audible signals for decads and she knows the sounds of the stop beep and the go beep, and will not go on the stop beep if I have misinterpreted the sound, but if I gave her a hard time and kept telling her to go she would, she is after all only a dog. The other big reality is that I am retested each and every year and I do not own the dog. The program maintains owernship of the dog and should I ever do anything wrong she can be taken away from me, and they do retest us to make sure we are both working fine and above all else that she wants to keep working. Most of the programs that are in existence for service dogs are not of the quality that guide dog schools are at, most are charging fees something guide dog programs do not do, and many programs are also profit making now and the fact is there is no law to say you cannot put a sign on your door and call yourself a service dog trainer, and when people are desperate for help they will in many cases believe everything they have been told. How many miracle cures are there for autism presented, a service is only sold as one of many of them, but common sense says that a 2 year old cannot look after and control a dog, but hey its a service dog so it mustn't need looking after!! !! !

I know how dogs think. Therefore if I was working with an intelligent dog whom I could communicate with, and whose personality was such that he or she were calm enough to learn, I could teach them to be sedate in a public area. I certainly would have the dog trained to do tasks for me but also to not run amok in a store, defecate in the subway, etc etc. Training a dog is as simple as letting him know what to do, and how to do it. If the dog respects and loves you, and is intelligent enough, and has a compatible personality, she will be able to be trained to function in public. Some dogs are rowdy in their nature, social and love to say hi to everyone. A dog like this would not be suitable to be a service dog. If the dog is playful thats one thing, but if he is constantly tugging, playing, biting, and carrying on, he is obviously not going to function in a crowded mall, etc, in a way in which he'd be helping his partner.

Does a dog need to be registered to be able to get onto the bus, into shops, etc?? I read that all you need is to have him trained, and then he is automatically allowed public access. Please inform me. I want all the facts.

Not all dogs have the temperament suited to be a working dog. The vast majority of dogs will not be comfortable in public places. You have to think about the long hours that are expected of them, that they will constantly have people yelling and screaming around them, they will have kids come and pull their tails, etc, etc. I have had kids shove pencils up my dogs nose. It is up to my dog to take whatever is put onto her and to turn to me and to say "can you please work this out for me". In order to be a working dog they have to believe that everybody loves them. My dog thinks that the whole world is her best friend. BUT she also feels that helping me is more important than anything else. When she is off duty she is playful and runs around like any other dog, and will interact with anyone else, any other animals, etc, etc. She has 2 very distinct personalities, on duty and off duty and she knows that. She knows that on duty means I can never go to the toilet no matter how much I need to, I cannot interact with others, I cannot play, I cannot make a sound, I cannot do this, I cannot do that. Any dog can have basic obedience training, but the fact is what is required of a working dog is not something that all dogs can do. It does not matter if someone pulls her tail or a wheelchair runs over her paw, she is working and simply has to take that stuff, and she does. What these dogs go through on a daily basis is not something you would want to put your worst enemy through at times, and if it was not that my dog loved every second of it, I would seriously question what I ask of her. The fact is she is only really happy when that harness is on. It is the highlight of her life. Yes she loves to play, yes she loves to run with other dogs, and to interact with people and to get lots of belly rubs, but to her the highlight of her life is having that harness on and having to focus her energy 110%. Most dogs are more than content to lay back and just take a walk once or twice a day, to be able to sniff when they want to and simply ask to go outside when they need toilet. You also need to recognise that dogs sniff to find out about the world and when in public they cannot do that. They cannot walk past food places and sniff, they cannot try to get food off the floor, and it is not about being told to leave it, it is about not trying and not being tempted to do it in the first place. These are not dogs that are asked to hold a down stay for 20 minutes while the handler is out of sight, they have to be able to hold a down stay for 4 hours at least while everything under the sun goes on around them. It is not about being able to toilet outside, it is about being able to fly in the cabin of an aircraft from one side of the world to the other without going. It is about being able to remain cool, calm and collected while a gunman shoots and holds up a bank, so as to not get their human partner in any more danger than they are already in. They cannot show the slightest bit of aggression as it does not matter what happens they have to tolerate it. They have to be able to be led away from their handler from the scene of an accident by a fireman in full uniform, etc and without battering an eyelid. Most dogs would rigthly be concerned about a fireman in full gear, and to then be having the person they love the most lying hurt and this alien looking creature leading them away from that person that is not easy for the average person, let alone a dog.

Technically you do not have to have a dog registered and tested to be a service dog in the US. But public places do have rights and if you want to complain about what they have done, you do have to prove the dogs training in a court of law. Standing up in court and saying the dog is trained because I said so, is not going to hold, nor is saying that I am disabled, because I said so. You need to have an incredibly long paper trail to make sure that you do have all the evidence you need if you ever are challenged. The dog must meet public access standards and it must be task trained and those tasks must help you with activities of daily living that you are unable to do for yourself because of your disability.

If you want to get advice about owner training, legal requirements, etc, etc then the best place to go is Service Dog Central. BUT before you start out on any training you have to decide what you will do if the dog will not make the grade. The simple fact is not all dogs can make the grade, what is expected of them is not something all can do, no matter how much you want it. They also have to be physically up to the task and the majority of dogs are not. Guide/Seeing Eye dog programs have extensive selective breeding programs and specialised socialisation and training that goes on from birth with the best trainers in the world and then only 50% of the dogs make the grade, not because they cannot guide, but because of what is expected of them in public places and the stress it would put them under. To claim that you will be able to pick the right dog and train it right so that it does work out is incredibly naive and shows that you have no concept of what is really involved.
http://www.servicedogcentral.org/content/

That's another thing is that you really can't be 100% accurate that the puppy you choose to be a service dog is actually going to be able to grow into the calm dog that you want him to. You can get some sort of idea based on the parents, but as bjcirceleb said 50% of the guide dogs that were specifically bred for guide work get rejected some time during their training, and a lot of times this is when the dog is over a year of age. The question for people who want to train their own service dog is 1) where do I get my dog from, and how do I determine if they have a chance at being suitable service dogs, and 2) what do I do with them if it turns out they cannot be my service dog. If you go by the statistics of the rejection rates in many guide dog organisations, your chance of getting an appropriate service dog is probably a lot less than 50%, seeing as you probably will be unable to get a dog from any guide dog lines. If you want a labrador as your service dog, for example, even if you get one from good working lines, these dogs are going to be trained to hunt and retrieve. This sort of work breeds very different characteristics- for example the rowdiness and playfullness, the need to chase things, and the friendliness to others, that you don't necessarily want in a service dog.

I tried to do a bit of research on how the Seeing Eye trains its dogs, but was surprised at how little information they have about it. I had no idea that being wary of moving cars was not a mandatory trait in the dogs. It's something that you would assume by hearing about these dogs in the media that they would be taught.

I was thinking about how guide dogs and other service dogs don't really have any instinctual drives working for them like you do with other working dogs. For example herding dogs have the natural instinct to herd, retrieving dogs have the natural instinct to retrieve, etc. Do you think that guide dogs use some of these instinctual drives, and do you think that because they do use less of these natural drives than other working dogs, that they have less of an enthusiasm or less fun working as service dogs than other working dogs do? I never really thought about just how different service dogs are from the other typical working dogs, where the dogs were bred specifically to do the work that they do, and therefore have such a natural instinct and a enthusiasm to do it. With service dogs, they don't really have too much of a natural instinct to lead the blind.

I would be so interested to know more about certain guide dog organisation's breeding programmes, but again they don't really share a lot of how they operate things with the general public.