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!

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is a neurological disorder that rewrites how a person's nervous systems interpret incoming information, translating everything into pain signals. This bombards a person's system to the point where other functions get put to the wayside, affecting everything from the ability to walk, muscle coordination, muscle strength, concentration, cognitive function, alters the overall health of a person's organs, and more. Everything gets interpreted as pain, and actual pain makes our bodies respond like we're in full-blown crisis mode when it's only a papercut. 

This disorder primarily impacts mobility and range of motion, but can lead to the development of depression, anxiety, organ complications, and PTSD from the pain flares, how we're handled by medical professionals, or the original accident (if there was one).

A CRPS diagnosis does not guarantee you will be or are disabled, but it can be disabling to some depending on the severity of it and where you're affected. CRPS presents differently in every patient, making it extraordinarily hard to diagnose, and adds to the complexity behind the simple question, "do I need a service dog?" 

Is it cheaper to train your own service dog instead of going through a service dog program or private board & train program? 

You tell me. 

​Any avenue you choose to go about obtaining a service dog partner will be expensive in some way. Of that I can almost guarantee. There is no such thing as a free service dog. Not really. To help illustrate this for you, I've broken down a few prominent costs involved with owner-training a service dog, based on my own experiences.

Service dogs, Therapy Dogs, Police K9 dogs, Military Working dogs, Detection dogs, Search & Rescue  dogs are all types of working dogs. They undergo lots of training that is specialized to their needed job, work for most of their life, and have to meet certain requirements to be able to do their job. 

Service dogs are the only type of working dog who accompany their handler into the general public on a routine basis, because they are needed to mitigate their handler's disability. To be clear, the handler holds the rights and protection of law, not the dog. 

Therapy dogs, Police K9s, Detection Dogs, and Search & Rescue Dogs are only permitted into select public spaces while performing their job. When off-duty, or on-duty but not actively working, they can only go to pet-friendly spaces. 

Emotional support animals/dogs and their owners can only ever go to pet-friendly spaces. ESAs are not considered to be a type of working dog. While what they provide their owner is immensely beneficial to their owner's well-being, it is  not a trained job. Select mental health professionals might allow the dog to be at sessions, or write  note allowing for the animal to live in non-pet-friendly housing, but that's it. 

For more information or if you have questions about this, send me an email at [email protected]!

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. 

Training your own service dog is not for everyone. It requires personal sacrifice to spend adequate time on and off the clock ensuring your working dog is always learning the right things, and not picking up bad behaviors, a ton of patience, and can be frustrating at times. Read on to find out 5 components of training to consider when training your own service dog. 

Deciding to partner with a service dog is a big decision, not only for the disabled individual, but also for anyone routinely involved in their life. I recommend sitting down with the people who routinely help you and go through these questions together, before embarking on the adventure of finding your service dog partner. 

Many things go into creating a good service dog, but age is one of the most crucial. There is a good reason why programs start with puppies bred from reputable parents, and why most owner-trainers search for puppies from a breeder or younger dogs from a  rescue. Youth is paramount for this task. In this post, I'll discuss the service dog timeline, the importance of puppies, and advantages of starting young vs the disadvantages of starting with an older dog. ​