It's November! November, for those of you new to our page or new to CRPS life, is the official awareness month for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. The awareness color is either orange or a fire gradient of red-orange-yellow. Every year, I honor CRPS month by sharing training tips, facts about CRPS, facts about CPRS Service Dogs, or some other way to educate people about this life. This year, I'll be posting every day on Facebook (I will try to match on Instagram), 30 different abilities and changes which have only been made possible in my life by working with a service dog for my CRPS. Some will be things made possible simply by training my own SD, because the truth is, change happens before they're doing task work. 

Preview of Fundamental Retrieve - essential for service dogs in training, beneficial for dogs with zero toy drive to learn how to play fetch

Preview of Puppy Paw Camp - essential for new puppy owners, starting with a puppy as a service dog prospect, or puppy owners who want their pup to start off on the right paw

Preview of Beginner Paw Camp - for dogs 7 months & older, who will be new to joining your household, or an essential starter package for new dog owners. Includes sessions BEFORE bringing your dog home to help you prepare

Yesterday was a recovery day for me. For the CRPS, my Saturday added up to Intense Walking + Intense Standing + Intense Sitting = haha, good luck walking later... I know, it sounds dumb. With CRPS, though, this is life. 

Anyway, I was supposed to be resting. Resting is difficult for me, because I like being active. As I scrolled through NPR looking for interesting reads, I saw this headline, "Dogs attacked more than 5,300 mail carriers last year, Postal Service Says." 

Oh good grief...

All the colorful metaphors bounced around in my mind, and watching tv quickly got pushed aside as my brain jumped into action. I have a theory about dogs and dog bites, and this headline pushed into focus a topic I've been wanting to write about for a while, and didn't quite know where to start. Until yesterday. 

In this post, you’ll learn about why its okay to be picky about what dogs your service dog socializes with, how to choose those friends, how playtime can aid in training overall, and a quick bit about dog parks, though that topic will be discussed in more detail in another post. ​

My wish for every client I work with, is for you to come out of training knowing what you're capable of with your dog. I want your dog to be calm and responsive to you. I want you to feel like You've Got This, whether you have CRPS/RSD and need a service dog, or you simply want a gentle, calm, and reliable companion by your side. 

Maybe you already have a dog who's a bit rough around the edges or you're looking for a new dog to bring into your life. You don't know what's possible with training until you try. Book a free, 30-minute consultation with me to learn what I can offer you!

I am lots of things. 

Did you know that when you commit to training your dog, you're also signing up to learn a brand new language with that dog?

​A language that will be the basis of your relationship, will create a reliable connection for listening & learning between the two of you, and that will make it possible for your team to do other activities together such as going on relaxing walks, competing in agility, working a job, and more. It's a language that may look very similar to other dog-owner teams, but every teams has their own unique aspects that make it like a secret language between BFFs. After all, haven't you always wanted to be able to talk to your dog, have them understand, & be able to understand them as well?

My current in-training dog, Austin, is high energy. Not in the bounce off the walls kind of way, but more of the "I want to move all day" sort. 

​Part of Austin's integration into our household includes free time. These are time periods where he practices being off-leash in the house, respecting our rules, listening to us without a leash to reinforce, co-existing calmly with Robbie, and just being a dog. 

It may surprise you to know that free time is something he struggles with. Not because he's getting into trouble, but rather because he tends to get unsettled and restless without direction. It illuminates how overwhelming freedom to make their own choices and determine their own activities can be for some dogs. 

In his active training sessions, Austin is learning Place (go to a specific spot and settle), Down, and public access Down (lying a certain way, in a certain spot). He hasn't quite put two and tow together to use those skills in his own time, though. 

I'm helping him learn how to settle and how to choose to settle with the following approaches:

1. Keeping free time as a reward after a training session, and keeping it short
2. Putting him on a leash tether that I'm holding and asking him to actively settle. I either wait for him to lay down and praise him, or actively tell him to lay down. He can lay how he likes, have a treat, take a nap, or watch the birds, but the tether keeps him from pacing. 

Pacing or changing positions often can be a sign of restlessness. The more you let your dog practice pacing by doing it, you're inadvertently teaching them, "Yes, please do this with your time and energy."

It's amazing how fast a leash and me settling down encourages him to settle down, too. 

You may be thinking, oh that will never work on my dog, they're too hyper. Any dog can learn to settle. How you do it may change, but the concept remains the same. All dogs need to learn how to settle because it helps them learn to relax and learn what to do with themselves when they are unsure or overwhelmed about something. 

Using a leash helps set a energy level of calm, along with you yourself settling down to read a book, watch tv, or another activity. It's easy to want to use treats, but throwing treats at your dog can accidentally infuse more energy into the exercise, which defeats your overall goal of "please calm down now." Not every approach works the same for every dog or team. For more help, send me an email and let's get you started training with Disabled Advantage. 

As a service dog, Austin will need to have a mix of "go all day" and "settle down here for a bit." He needs to channel his energy into either avenue equally as well. 

If your dog sounds like Austin, try this tip to improve their day - and yours! For more help, schedule a training consult today!

Socialization and building a reliable dog doesn't have a perfect rule book of instructions for the simple reason that every dog is different. There are guidelines, but no "one-size-fits-all" approach. What one dog finds distracting, another dog can work around without issue. What one dog is afraid of, another dog barely notices. What one dog is confident around, another dog can barely take the first step.

​The key to overcoming this training challenge is learning what your dog considers to be of little distraction, moderate distraction, and high distraction. The level of distraction directly affects how much your dog has to overcome in order to pay attention to you and be responsive when you ask them to do things. In this post, I want to delve specifically into how distractions change when you take a country dog into the city for a training session, and vice versa if you're wanting to take a city dog out into the countryside for a fun weekend or longer vacation. Thought and time should be given to any dog - working or companion - to allow them chances to be exposed to various differences between city/town and country/wide open spaces. 

Socialization training is a part of dog training that involves exposing your dog to various sight, sounds, and smells in a positive or neutral manner so that they do not develop an aversion or fear to it. The goal with socialization training in the beginning isn't to interact, but rather to simply learn how to experience a stimuli or event without developing an averse reaction. All socialization training begins at home, then your neighborhood, and is expanded to more places as your dog becomes ready. In this post, I'll explain why desensitization/socialization training is important for either a service dog or a companion dog, and 10 tips to help you introduce your dog to the world around them without accidentally overwhelming them or creating negative connections. 

Rushing training will get you nowhere. Training a service dog takes 1 - 2 years, because there is so much material for both the dog and handler to learn. Taking shortcuts will cause problems later on, like your dog struggling to heel through crowds, being unsure of new situations, not being able to be out of sight from you, and the list goes on. Training will be boring at times, but going slowly through everything to be sure that both you and your dog are capable at each level is vital to your success as a team one day, and their ability to do their important job day after day, under any circumstances. Tasks, especially, are very complicated actions for a dog to learn how to do, and that takes time. 

Not all dogs have the drive to help people, or the energy to be on alert for several hours during the day. A service dog not only needs to have the desire to please their person, but also be capable of focusing in high distraction zones, lay on uncomfortable surfaces, ignore temptations like food or other people's attention, be on their feet moving several times a day, or go to work and be on duty in a strange place for 2 - 8 hours in a day. Some dogs just want to romp in the yard and snuggle on the couch, and that is okay! What isn't okay, though, would be trying to force the snuggler into a rigorous life of working when they don't have the heart for it. When looking into dogs, you want a dog with medium to high energy, and a desire to be with people or their person. Checking out specific working breeds is a good idea. 

Recently disabled/diagnosed? Give yourself a year or so to acclimatize to what life as a disabled individual is like, before adding a service dog to the mix. Besides - if you're new to being disabled, it may take you some time to figure out how you need a dog to help you. 

Moving soon/new baby coming soon/getting married soon? Wait for the big life change to happen, for life to smooth out a little, and then talk about bringing a service dog into the mix, especially if you want to owner-train. Adjusting to always needing to account for your service dog's presence, their needs, and how they help you, into your daily routines can be a challenge in itself at first. Working with a service dog is a big life change. You don't want to stack big life changes if you can stagger them. 

Medical condition in a constant state of turmoil? Be prepared for owner-training to feel like you're being road hauled until you find your feet. Trying to force yourself out of bed to train, play with, feed, and exercise your service dog in training will be a hefty task for yourself several times a day, every single day for 1 - 2 years. There are no days off from taking care of your dog. Days off from training, yes. Days off from giving them structure, playtime, feeding, and general care are not a thing. Once your dog learns how to help you, your condition will likely stabilize, and things get easier with your dog's care and your interests/hobbies. Until then, you need to have a way to drive yourself into action to give your service dog's training and care everything you got.