Training "Leave It"

I am hardly a dog trainer. I was really proud when we taught our Great Dane to sit years ago. But as the handler of service dogs that go out in public, constant and continuous training is required to maintain sharpness in the dog, and to get the dog to fit your lifestyle. So we try and work some kind of obedience training/work into every single day.

We take these dogs everywhere with us, and most of the time, that means kids are around. The also means potential food being carried at dog height, food being dropped, toys, all kinds of fun things for a lab to grab. Perhaps your going out to a restaurant, and need to put your dog under the table. Is there stray french fries down there? Perhaps a half eaten churro at an amusement park? Or maybe something really dangerous to dogs like chocolate or grapes. Having a dog that knows "leave it" can make your life easier.

Sometimes, You Just Need A Hug

20130309-IMG_1316, a photo by fwisneski on Flickr.

Sometimes an image says so much more. A split second moment. This particular image hits home for me on why these dogs are so important to their people.

What's With All This Training Talk?

I talk a lot about the amount of work these dogs require, and will continue to for the rest of their lives. When I mention to friends that we are going to a training session, or that I take the dogs out and work obedience with them, they often times just assumed that would eventually end. After all, these dogs have been through 1-2 years of training with some of the best trainers around, so what gives?

Raven working with distractions

Why a DAD? Part 2 of an ongoing topic

Last week I covered the first reason why we have a DAD, night alerting and back-up plans for zombies. Today, I will cover my second reason, which for the uninitiated sounds crazy, but once you've witnessed it, never ceases to amaze. We call it "remote alerting"

Yesterday here in the U.S. was President's Day, a school holiday for our kids. I didn't have the day off, but my wife has the amazing good fortune to be able to work from home. I came home from work at about 4:15 pm, and both of our kids were playing in the backyard. Running around, riding scooters, getting dirty, burning off energy.  I came in the back door, put my stuff down, and found my wife in the kitchen starting to prep dinner. Major was on a place (a mat where we ask them to "down, stay"), and Raven was tethered to my wife doing some training. We started talking about our day.

A Gorgeous Saturday

We are having a beautiful Saturday here in So Cal. It's the first weekend in awhile where we didn't have a full day planned weeks in advance. I started off with a 7 mile run with Major and Raven, then dropped off Raven at home to rest and headed out to Stella's riding lesson.

We give Raven a lot of crate time in the morning as she is up so often during the night keeping an eye on errant blood sugars. She seems to like to sleep/rest in her crate between 7-10 am.

After her lesson, we came home and swapped dogs again, then took Raven out to lunch, some shopping, and back home again.

Get to know the DAD's! Heeeeerrrrrreeee's RAVEN!

Raven wants to say "Hi!". Meet Raven, Raven is the second half of Team Black Dogs Rule. She completes the circle.

She is no prissy princess. She leads with her tail, and when it get's going, she has a hard time walking straight. This girl is a BIG personality, with a zest for life. She goes head first into everything. No, really. That's why she has the tell tail white whiskers between her eyes. Old battle wounds from chasing a ball into a palm tree:)

Get to know the DAD's! First up, Major!

 This is Major. He is a Diabetic Alert Dog, my daughter's service dog. He was matched with our family back in October of 2011. This is the only other man (aside from me & my son) that my daughter is allowed to love :-)

This post is designed to help you learn a little more about our DAD's and their individual strengths and weaknesses. Just like you and I, these dogs have their own personalities. If you have a service dog, or are in the process of getting one, considering one etc, it is very important to understand that each dog is different, and will require some molding both of you, and of the dog, to fit into your life style.

Why a DAD?

So, aside from the question "Why 2 dogs?", the next question comes up alot.

"Why do you need a DAD?"

I will share just 1 of many specific reasons here. This will probably be the first of an on-going series of "Why a DAD?".

As Type 1 parents, we tend to walk around in perpetual exhaustion. There are multiple checks at night. Our night goes like this, and I will keep it simple, based on an average night:

1. Check the girl's BS when she goes to bed.  (If it's in range, great. If not, I could do 3 more posts on all the different things that may need to happen, decisions to be made, etc. Bedtime is scary time)

2. Check again when the parents go to bed.

3. Set Alarm for midnight and 3. (This is normal unless a low correction or an aggressive high correction is made)

4. Check her again at wake-up (6am)

Now we do all of this even WITH a DAD. Animals are living, breathing things, just like us. They can miss an alert, be extremely tired from a day out with the kids, not feel well, any number of things could lead to a missed alert. So the DAD's aren't robots or alarms, they are part of a redundant back up system. A safety net. Dogs are NOT responsible for my child's health or life, we parents are. But they do come in really handy.

Which leads us to last night.

The Aquarium of the Pacific

We had a wonderful time meeting up with our Canine Hope for Diabetics family on Sunday at the Aquarium of the Pacific. 

We met some amazing new families. One family, the Lara's, got to play with Raven all day, to kind of take a DAD out for a test drive. Raven was perfect for most of the day, even giving several alerts to blood sugar issues. She let us know by the end of the day though, that she didn't want to go home with anyone else but us :-)

And Then There Were Two...

 The first question I am normally asked is, "Why do you have 2 service dogs?"

There isn't a quick answer, so here goes. When we first started our search for a DAD, my wife and I, being big animal rescue people (don't shop, adopt!) thought it would be amazing to just go pick a dog out at the shelter and find someone to train it. That proved to be a very naive thought. We initially had trouble even finding a service dog trainer willing to listen to us! When we finally came across Canine Hope, they were willing to listen, but gave us a new option. Crystal, the head of the organization and also a trainer, told us that the only way this would work was if she scoured the shelters looking for the right type of dog. You see, with service dogs, there is so much money and time invested in training that there is a few things that need to be assured. First, that the dog is young and healthy. If you are already going to be spending 1-2 years training, and then want to have the dog work for 10 years, you need to start out young. Secondly, and one of the biggest issues with pound puppies, is it's critical to know the background of the dog. These dogs go everywhere with us, so you need to know whether the dog will freak out if a boy in a grey hoodie goes by, or if it hates men in uniforms, things like that. And third, if it comes from a legitimate breeder, the dog will have health guarantees, generally covering vision and hips.

Welcome!

It's been a long time since I've done this with any frequency. One could even say it was a different lifetime ago.

So, who am I? I'm a dad of 2 beautiful kids. My wife and I have a boy and a girl, and our daughter is a type 1 diabetic and has Asperger's (a high functioning form of autism). In order to help us keep her blood sugar in check, we have 2 service dogs, or Diabetic Alert Dogs, better known as DAD's.