What is a service dog anyway? A service dog is a dog used for assistance. They are usually used to help people with visual or hearing disabilities. Traits that should be present with these dogs are trainability, good behavior, good physical health and structure and bendability. There are several organizations that specifically train service dogs. Often, these dogs are from rescue shelters or donated by charitable breeders. Service dogs can be mixed race too as long as they have all the needed traits. With their given duties, they are often placed in the working animal category Dog behavior training Houston. The safety and health of the owner is on their paws after all. Good service dog training is a must. They are usually trained to avoid any distractions especially when they wear their service gears. When their gears are removed though, well trained dogs are friendly and more relaxed. They also ignore most people when on duty.
As any kind of dog training, service dog training starts when they are just puppies. Usually, these puppies are trained first as domestic dogs and live in foster families. When they are old enough, advance service training begins. During their puppy lives though, they are trained to interact properly with different kinds of people with regards to age, gender, mode of dress, disability, etc. They are also trained on how to behave in the presence of other dogs and other animals. Basic training includes toilet training, riding in cars, coming when called, sitting down, staying, and other usual dog behaviors.
Near completion of their basic training in their foster homes, the puppies are evaluated between their twelfth and eighteenth month. If they exhibit good performance and good psychological status they are further trained to become service dogs. Dogs that do not quite passed the standards are passed to different organizations to be trained as custom dogs or police dogs.
Advance training will make them work well despite distraction or in different environment. The heel position is the usual working position they should learn and they should keep this position regardless of the owner’s movement or if anything happens to its leash. Also, they are known to toilet only on command when on duty.
In general, service dog training makes a dog well trained to perform work that will help its owner with his or her disability. The dogs behavior is customized to its owner since each person, even when having the same disability, is different. For example, dogs should learn how to cross a street when it knows that other people are already crossing if its owner is blind.
They are wonderful since they act different at work and while they are free. They follow their training when they wear their gear but do whatever they want when they don’t. This is because they are trained to do their job wearing their gear. They know that they should behave and follow their training when they have their service gear on. I hope you learned a lot about service dog training.