Does anyone here use a service animal?

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White_Feather
Tufted Titmouse
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30 Dec 2021, 1:41 pm

I am thinking about using a service dog. I am not able to go out by myself because of sensory overload and stress from communicating with people. I haven't been able to deal with that my whole life. To cope in the past, I used drugs.

I want to train my own dog. I have a lot of dog training experience and I am brainstorming of tasks to train her to help me. Keeping people away from me is one thing, I need space and she can be taught to sit behind me in lines and walk on the side people pass by on etc. She also senses when I am getting overwhelmed and naturally responds by jumping on me to calm me down.

I am also debating on allowing her to interact with people on command to ease the social pressure on me. Generally service dogs do not interact with strangers but I feel it might help me in certain situations. I also do not want to cause confusion when a different type of service dog is around that cannot be petted or distracted.



maycontainthunder
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30 Dec 2021, 2:45 pm

The only issues I can see in training your own dog are

1)I bet they're friendly and that is an issue with a service dog.
2)Dedicated service dogs are trained from a pup for the job; they're trained not to get distracted.

I see no issues with training your own dog to help you around the house.

Slight threadjack but I think you might like this video;



AnonymousAnonymous
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30 Dec 2021, 6:42 pm

I love dogs, but I do not use one because I don't need one.


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White_Feather
Tufted Titmouse
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31 Dec 2021, 2:07 pm

No offense but you should probably read my post a little better. Training her to ignore distractions is not an issue at all. I've handled and trained all sorts of dogs in many areas, so training my dog for the job isn't an issue at all. I am not wanting to take an unsuitable pet into public like sadly so many others do. What I am asking is if anyone here uses a service dog for ASD and also what anyone thinks about the trained tasks I mentioned and if they had any ideas for other tasks that could help me.

maycontainthunder wrote:
The only issues I can see in training your own dog are

1)I bet they're friendly and that is an issue with a service dog.
2)Dedicated service dogs are trained from a pup for the job; they're trained not to get distracted.

I see no issues with training your own dog to help you around the house.

Slight threadjack but I think you might like this video;