Thank you for the clip. A harness or work jacket can be necessary for some tasks. Lead handler to nearest exit is a task Epsilon does. A collar an leading (pulling gently) was a task we waited to learn to cue. It can be challenging to teach an Assistance Animal when pulling is the task. Learning cues to do things generally not permitted when working can be confusing for young dogs. Eps is cued when it is ok to go sniff or make noise or dig a hole or lead me to an exit. You are so right about not rushing young dogs. This learning cue giver has made, and still makes many mistakes along the way. Having a smart and enthusiastic AD has many upsides. Learning calm and reducing excitement in high distraction environments has been a process and, even as a young, fully qualified and certified owner trainer AD team we still have to keep up with improving our skills and tasks. It is a mammoth job for a PWD to owner train and Assistance Animal. It has been worth it for us. I am very grateful for the cue giving teachers and dog trainers I visit regularly to help us and helpful online AD training channels. Thank you. 🐾
This is so important and I wish I knew it sooner! My dog came to Home depot for his third PA training day and while he did fine, I do regret bringing him in a way. It was a busier location than I expected, it was loud, huge, and honestly scary from a dogs perspective. Definitely sticking to craft stores for now.
Just want to say, thank you so much for all the great advice/training tips, I don’t have a puppy yet but plan to get one in the near future to train as my service/ assistant dog and your videos are really helping in putting me on the right track from the start!! 🥳
I think I am misunderstanding what you said about harness vs collar in section 3. Sis you mean that just the collar means “go ahead a be a dog” and that the harness means “now we are working?”
So, actually, the opposite. The collar means we're working, and the harness means you can be a dog. The harness = walk politely, but feel free to sniff and move out of heel position. The Collar = stay in heel position, don't sniff, don't greet people. There are lots of ways to make that working vs not working distinction for a dog, but we've found this generally works well for our handlers (as long as the dog can safely be walked on a harness, if not, the dog would need training to be able to do so).
@@myservicedogandme thank you for clarifying. I thought that is what you’d said, but I’ve heard the opposite. I guess whichever you choose, just be consistent?
@@krisvanallen Some people use the vest as an indicator of work as well. If you have a vest that can do patches, you can just put an in-training patch on, your dog won't know the difference between patches, but people will.
@@FenrirAldebrand I think I was confusing harness with vest. I plan to use a vest with patches for "working". but I think it is the consistency that matters, right?
@@krisvanallen Pretty much yeah. I like tactical vests for dogs because you can put on patches, pouches, and they generally have enough buckles so you can take it off your dog without removing the collar. I find however, that they don't make great harnesses. Sure, they're shaped like one, but I find he's more comfortable with a looser vest and whatever collar I'm using that day.
How do I help him if he's fine once he's settled IN the space (ie PetSmart or the college where he's allowed to go) but it's getting there that's the problem. He's anxious around traffic, buses and big trucks especially. I've been trying so hard to help his anxiety, and while he's made strides since he was a 4 month old pup, at 11½ months old he's very anxious and scared. He's a Belgian Malinois. Whenever I take him outside he listens well in a certain radius on our street, he does plenty of sniffing, hangs out on his long line right up until a bus goes by. Whether or not he will end up being a service dog, I don't want him to be this anxious. It can get bad enough that he won't even take the really good treats. I've been trying to associate the high value treat with the scary thing, but I've been also wondering if it's been rewarding the anxiety.
When my first dog was a puppy he rufused to walk outside or be near the street due to how busy my front lawn was for traffic nearby, super loud. He eventually learned its not scary by every day we sat outside in front lawn for five minutes and id pet him and give him treats as he cried and wanted to go inside, eventually walking closer to the road and then he eventually grew out of the noise discomfort. RU-vid also have noise audio videos to play in house to help desenatize your dog to honking,etc.
@@Dogwithoutaname I don't know if it's noise. I can blow stuff up real loud in video games, or whatever noise is on TV and he'll sleep right through it. Either that or he knows it's the TV. I think I did way too much too soon with him when I brought him home. I wanted to get him "used to the bus" so if he was NOT having it, I'd just carry him on. Nothing I can do about that now but learn from my mistake, and just keep trying to work on it. I am trying to find him a better home at the same time. It's not a lack of love, or commitment, but I want him to be the happiest dog alive, and if that's not with me, then it sucks, but I'll be okay with it eventually. He's young enough that he'll be okay eventually too. It wasn't an easy choice, I always said that I wouldn't give up on him, but I'm realizing that all the advice in the world can't replace experience.
