service dogs training

Minimum Standards for
Training Service Dogs

These are intended to be minimum standards for all assistance dog programs that are members or provisional members with ADI. All programs are encouraged to work at levels above the minimums.

1. The service dog must respond to commands (basic obedience and skilled tasks) from the client 90% of the time on the first ask in all public and home environments.
2. The service dog should demonstrate basic obedience skills by responding to voice and/or hand signals for sitting, staying in place, lying down, walking in a controlled position near the client and coming to the client when called.
3. The service dog must meet all of the standards as laid out in the minimum standards for Assistance Dogs in Public and should be equally well behaved in the home.
4. The service dog must be trained to perform at least 3 tasks to mitigate the client's disability
5. The client must be provided with enough instruction to be able to meet the ADI Minimum Standards for Assistance Dogs in Public. The client must be able to demonstrate:
   • That their dog can perform at least 3 tasks.
   • Knowledge of acceptable training techniques.
   • An understanding of canine care and health.
   • The ability to maintain training, problem solve, and continue to train/add new skills (as required) with their service dog.
   • Knowledge of local access laws and appropriate public behavior.
6. The assistance dog program must document monthly follow ups with clients for the first 6 months following placement. Personal contact will be done by qualified staff or program volunteer within 12 months of graduation and annually thereafter.
7. Identification of the service dog will be accomplished with the laminated ID card with a photo(s) and names of the dog and partner. In public the dog must wear a cape, harness, backpack, or other similar piece of equipment or clothing with a logo that is clear and easy to read and identifiable as assistance dogs.
8. The program staff must demonstrate knowledge of the client's disabilities in relation to the services they provide. The program shall make available to staff and volunteers educational material on different disabilities.
9. The client must abide by the ADI Minimum Standards of Assistance Dog Partners.
10. Prior to placement every service dog must meet the ADI Standards and Ethics Regarding Dogs, be spayed/neutered and have current vaccination certificates as determined by their veterinarian and applicable laws. It is the program's responsibility to inform the client of any special health or maintenance care requirements for each dog.

dog training aggression

Aggression in dogs is a very serious behavior problem and should be dealt with right from the start. Common signs of dog aggression include growling, baring teeth, snarling, snapping and biting.

What most people do not understand is that while this kind of behavior is unacceptable to humans, it is quite natural for dogs to be aggressive. Where dogs are concerned, there is always a good reason for aggressive behavior, the only problem is that their owners fail to acknowledge it.

Dog aggression can be reduced or even prevented as long as you, the owner, are willing to understand the factors that influence your dog's behavior. A good rule is to treat any signs of aggression as they surface, rather than deal with aggression when it has become an issue. It is always easier that way. It is also easier when you understand how important your role is and how your own behavior may contribute to the development of aggression problems in your dog.

Types of Dog Aggression

There are several types of dog aggression: Defensive or fear-based aggression, dominance aggression, possessive and territorial aggression, intra-sexual (male-to-male or female-to-female) or parental. A dog may show more than one type of aggression.

• Dominance aggression. Your dog may think that she is the alpha dog. There are dogs that have a greater predisposition for asserting themselves as predators. Male dogs and certain breeds have a greater tendency toward asserting their dominance over their territory, other dogs and people. The solution for this kind of dog is to get control quickly and establish your leadership through training.

• Fear-based aggression. Dogs that are physically abused will build fear of that person and may react with defensive aggression one day. A fear-based aggressive dog will usually display submissive body language but may snap if cornered and will often bite at people who turn and walk away.

• There are at least two normal causes of aggressive behavior and even biting. One is maternal protection of pups by the mom, and another is sibling rivalry. Here, the best advice is to properly socialize your dog at a very early age, to people as well as to other dogs. Sometimes, hormonal medication will effectively treat the aggression in these dogs.

• Territorial and Possessive aggression. A dog may be territorially aggressive over certain objects such as her bed, her home and her food bowl. Establishing your leadership and counter-conditioning this dog are essential. It is important to begin this training at a very early age.

What You Can Do When Your Dog Is Aggressive

When trying to deal with your dog's aggressive behavior, one of the first steps is to make sure there are no medical problems you are not aware of. There is a chance that a health problem is responsible for your dog's aggressive behavior. So, check with your veterinarian before you rule this one out.

Whatever you do, take precautions. Keeping everyone safe is your main concern. Since you are responsible for your dog's behavior, it would be a good idea to confine her, leash her or restrict your dog’s activities until you have found a way to deal with the problem. If you feel that you can not control your dog or if you're afraid that your dog may bite someone then it's better that she wears a muzzle. Remember, these are only temporary measures until you can get professional dog training help.

If you can identify the situations that cause most of your dog's aggressive behavior then you should avoid them at least for the time being. Exposing your dog to situations where she is more likely to show aggression will work against you.

You can spay or neuter your dog. Hormones are known to contribute to aggressive tendencies in intact dogs so it's more likely for them to show some kind of aggressive behavior.

Aggressive Dog Treatment

Get professional help. An aggression problem will not go away by itself. Treatment is best handled by a professional dog trainer who has a lot of experience working with aggressive dogs. You wouldn't want to hire any dog trainer who is poorly qualified or anyone who uses excessive force and punishment in order to correct an aggressive dog.

Punishment won’t help, in fact, it will make the problem worse. In most cases, the use of punishment will either challenge your dog's dominant position or make her more fearful, and therefore more aggressive. It will help escalate the aggressive behavior and is more likely to result in a bite or a severe attack.

Most aggressive dogs can be retrained under the right circumstances. However, before you start a program to correct an aggressive dog, you must realize that there is a chance your dog may never be trustworthy around other people or children and may bite if provoked. Consult veterinarians or animal behaviorists for their opinions about whether your dog can be rehabilitated or should be put down.

dog obedience training

It was the last straw. I came home to find my wife sobbing her eyes out on the couch. There were her new black pumps, chewed beyond help or even recognition. Not only that there was also a big pile of dog poop on the floor of the living room right next to the shoes. That was it. No matter what the girls wanted, I had had enough of that dog.

Choco had been long wanted and wished for by my family of daughters. They begged me over and over again for a dog but since I hadn’t really had a dog since I was a kid myself and I didn’t have much experience with dogs I begged off, at least for a while. But then one day my oldest daughter came home and said that her friends chocolate lab had had a litter of puppies and we could have one if we wanted. My wife and I talked about it and we told her we might consider it.

A few weeks later, we went over to see the puppies and Choco just seemed to connect with each of my daughters and even my wife and I. All of the puppies were cute like puppies are but Choco was special. I knew and the family knew. I knew that she would be joining our family. The girls named her Chocolate Sauce but we started calling her Choco for short.

Soon, though we starting realizing the problems that come with an untrained puppy, everything from accidents in the house, to chewing, unnecessary barking at friends and neighbors and even nipping at my youngest daughter and my daughter’s friends. I didn’t have a clue on how to train a puppy and my wife didn’t either, the girls were too young to know exactly what to do and when they tried, it just made matters worse because girls have a tendency to squeal and all that did was scare Choco.

So I looked into some training. To get into an obedience class in my area, I found out that it would cost $90.00 for the weekend and we would be in a class with at least 12 other dogs. That seemed expensive and I wasn’t sure that I felt comfortable enough that I would even be able to learn myself, let alone train Choco.

But the day of the shoe incident, I knew it was over. I either had to figure out how to train this little mongrel of a puppy or we would have to get rid of him. So I started searching the Internet. There were a large variety of different products, some sounded good and others sounded confusing. But I found a dog obedience training course and it made sense to me. I especially liked the fact that there was a sample video that I could check out. I tried the techniques suggested on the video that night and it was amazing! Choco responded right away and I was so thrilled.

So I ordered the complete course, 7 videos about everything I needed to have so that Choco could remain the much beloved and treasured member of my family that she had already become.

Training Choco turned out to be easy when I had some decent instructions on what exactly to do. She responded immediately to the training methods that I learned about in the videos and we all enjoyed working with her and training her to be the kind of dog that our family needed.

Now Choco is a joy. She is well-behaved, sweet and lovable and she has become exactly the type of dog that we all dreamed of having when we picked her out of that cute little litter. And my girls are

thrilledthat worked for us and I can wholeheartedly and completely recommend it to anyone who is having trouble with their dogh

paper training puppy

Be consistent in your training. When you use one method stick to it. Consistency will be rewarded. Try to maintain a strict schedule regarding:

• What you feed your dog
• When you feed her
• When you give her water
• When you take her out for a walk

Stick to quality, dry food. It makes his digestion and stool's consistent. A good quality, dry food also exercises his jaws and helps to keep his teeth clean. What you feed your dog will affect:

• How solid her stools are
• How often she potties
• How much control she will have over his urge

Eating table scraps can really mess up your dog's stools (as well as giving him health problems) and therefore wreak havoc on your housebreaking plans. Decent quality, dry dog food is you and your dog's biggest ally... table scraps are not.

When a puppy, your dog will require 3 or 4 feedings and waterings a day. When 6 months and older begin to cut his feedings down to a couple of times a day, but continue to give him water 3 or 4 times a day. The last watering should be no later than a couple of hours before bedtime.

The feeding and drinking time shouldn't last over 15 minutes. She'll soon learn not to dawdle over her food bowl.

Try to feed your dog in a nice, quiet spot and don't interrupt him during his 15 minute feeding and watering time. The last feeding should be as early as possible (around 5 or 6) so that he will eliminate on the last walk and will not have to go overnight.

When you bring your dog home, section off a small area for her living space. Start out covering her entire confined area with absorbent paper.

Your mission is to gradually make her paper area smaller and smaller until you are left with a very small potty area. And then you will probably want to move her potty area exclusively to the great outdoors.

Keep her potty papers in one location. Do not put them throughout the house. She should have her one, defined, potty area in her sight at all times.

Try to change any dirty paper ASAP. You want her to be clean at all times, which will make her prefer it to being dirty.

Clean thoroughly the areas where she uses the potty with ammonia free cleanser. A simple solution of vinegar diluted with water is a good neutralizer. You can put some in a spray bottle for convenience. She will continue to use the potty where she smells even faint traces of her own waste. And a dog's urine contains ammonia. You can also use this to your advantage... Put some of her soiled papers exactly where you want her to go.

When you take your dog outside to potty, stay with him. Take him exactly where you want him to go using his collar and leash. You can also take his soiled paper with you and put it in the area where you would like for him to go. Give him around 15 minutes to do his business. If he doesn't go, then bring him back in. If he shows signs of having to go, then take him back outside.

Praise your dog when he potties on the designated papers or area. Don't go overboard in your praise though. In the wild, his mother would not. Whenever you catch your dog going in the wrong place - grab him and take him to his papers or designated area immediately, while saying "Bad Dog."

After a walk and business done, then he can get 15 - 20 minutes of play time and then back to his living area.

If you discover an accident after the fact, take your dog over to the area and let her get a good whiff. Say "Bad Dog" and then take her to the designated potty area.

Don't ever shove his nose in the mess or hit him. This does no good at all. His mother wouldn't do it. She would correct him with her voice, or shove him with her muzzle or body.

Make sure that all other sources of water are eliminated during training so that you will have control over when and therefore where she urinates. Possible sources where she might sneak a drink of water: toilets, flowerpots, puddles, etc.

Patience is very important. Remember that if you stick with it, your dog will sooner or later be housebroken.

Points to remember:

Tough love is sometimes necessary. Remember, you are the leader and your tough love will pay off in the long run.

A dog's sense of smell is thousands of times keener than our's, so believing that an odor is gone by using your own sense of smell is useless. Always use an ammonia free cleanser.

His small living space should be near the action of the house so he doesn't get too lonely.

Your puppy won't have very good control of his stools and urine until after 3 months of age, so he will need more frequent walks.

Keeping your puppy confined to his personal area or him being where you can keep a constant eye on him are essential to house-breaking. It does more good to catch him in the act of an accident and stopping him than correcting him after the fact.

While you're away, leave him in his personal confined space with his potty papers. Make sure that he has something to chew on, as this will keep him occupied. You might also want to leave the radio or television on, as dogs are social animals and crave company.

Observe closely your dog's habits. See how long after eating he relieves himself. Get a good average. This will help you in planning a schedule for his walks.

When the paper training is over, clean the area thoroughly with ammonia free cleanser so that he doesn't continue to use that area.

You can take some of his soiled paper outside while training to get him to go in a specific area.

Take your dog out first thing in the morning. He should go within about 20 minutes, if not bring him in and watch him. Take him out when he displays the urge to go.

Puppy training bells

After you have housetrained your puppy dog, you might find it useful to train your puppy to ring a bell when he wants to go out to potty. Believe it or not, this is not a difficult trick to train if you follow these instructions. Your puppy will only ring the bell when he or she genuinely needs to go to the toilet.

This is not a behaviour you want on cue (command). Ideally, you want your dog to learn that ringing the bell gets them let outside when they need to go to the toilet and at no other time.

At first you need to shape the bell ring that you want. This is done by presenting the bell in front of pup's nose and clicking & treating when she touches the bells, even if by accident (it is assumed that the reader knows a little about clicker training here and can shape a target behavior). If pup isn't interested, put the bell behind your back, wait a few seconds, then present the bell again. When pup has a really, really good idea that you want her to touch the bells, then you stop clicking & treating the quieter rings, and only click & treat the louder rings (this is known as selective reinforcement).

Then you start doing this when you know pup needs to go to the toilet. Present the bells at the back door, click, then open the back door (no treat). Put the bells away until next time pup needs to go to the toilet.

After a while pup will figure out "hey, every time I ring the bell I get let out to potty!" When pup is anticipating ringing some bells before you let her out (demonstrated by looking at you, or looking at bells when not presented), it's time to start leaving the bells hung up on the door.

You should have a pretty good idea of when pup will need to go to the toilet. So if you hear the bells rung at that time, race over and open the door. If you hear bells ring at other times, ignore it. Don't let this trick work for pup unless you're at least 80% sure it's because she needs to go to the toilet.

This is a trick best left for pups who are already 95% toilet trained, but if pup isn't already toilet trained go right ahead and teach pup how to ring the bells, then wait until pup is toilet trained before continuing.

Some dogs will find bell ringing intrinsically reinforcing, regardless of what happens after the bells are rung. This sort of dog cannot easily be taught to ring a bell only when needing to toilet.

Remember, no cues! Don't prompt with your hands or give verbal hints of what you want pup to do. It will only add confusion and you'll probably find that pup starts looking for them. Still bodies, quiet mouths. Use your clicker to communicate

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Puppy training games

Games that constitute jumping, chasing or running after the ball, the dog exercises his movements, as well as developing their capacity of reaction and faculty of three-dimensional perception.

The firm rubber balls are the most appropriate ones to throw and let them roll. The way to play and the techniques vary depending on the hunting dogs: the ball gets thrown at the dog or rolled at the opposite direction in different velocities; you let the ball bounce off the dogs sight range or over some irregularity in the terrain (raise his incentive by keeping the ball under control) and you can combine it with the orders of fetch and bring it. Start with short tosses. Never throw the ball directly at the dog, cause it can hurt him as he tries to grab it.

Struggle with big Balls, light ones filled with air get the dogs enthusiastic: toss the ball at mid height at the dog, which should jump up and hit at it with his muzzle returning it to you. Careful with a hard floor: many dogs will fall and hurt themselves badly, just trying to hit ball.

Important: use balls filled up with air only for training, because the dog can bite them and swallow them (danger of suffocation). The Game of Passing the Ball, Running at it and Playing Football (with their paws or muzzles)

Make the delights to any dog, especially if the main player is his owner. Don't allow the dog in his excitement to bite at shoes or pants, if so break the rhythm of the game, block the ball or finish the game with .

In games of running: between several people (maximum 3, because more people only confuse the dog) you can send the dog from one person to another, always chasing the tossed ball. With each change of position you have to let him play with the ball for a little while or motivate him with a candy.

Note: never deceive a dog intentionally, not even playing. For example, acting as throwing the ball but making it disappears behind your back.