A review of what it takes to select, & self train a service dog for mobility assistance, medical alert & response. 

 

At this time I've been on this journey for just over a year & a half. It has been interesting to say the least. 

I'll start at the beginning, the very beginning, selecting the breed of my Service dog. After the unexpected passing of my dog Bones, who helped me way more than I gave him credit for. I realized that although I didn't know it  at the time I trained him for it, he was a Service Dog by ADA standards. es I had trained him to help around the house, to alert & keep me from passing out. He mitigated some difficulties of my disability. 

 

So after a month or so I talked with my family about getting a dog to specifically train as a service dog for mobility & medical alert. We had an open discussion as Bones was not just my dog but a family pet & it's a big decision to not only get another dog but to get one to self train as a service dog.

 

There are a high percentage of people that attempt this & have to "wash" their prospect for any number of reasons. The truth is that although if you get very lucky you can owner train but only a small percentage of dogs have the personality to be service dogs. There are shelter dogs that go on to become service dogs also again it's not every dog.

 

So I hit the internet to find out what my options were, at this point i was not well versed with the ADA laws & had only known of program trained dogs. So I started there. I wrote to as many programs as I qualified for, the unfortunate truth is that there are more people in need then there are program dogs. My wait would have been 2 years at minimum for a dog & that didn't guarantee me a match. 

 

After a few weeks of research, a lot of Youtube videos, Emailing a few organizations, & reading the ADA laws. I realized I could train my own dog.

 

Great! Now what breed do I get? How do i decide? yep you guessed it more research but this time on types of dogs used for different types of service. Most of the dogs used for mobility are Labradors, Golden retrievers, Poodles & Shepards. I did come across a few articles that stated a mobility dog should be 50% the handlers height with a harness that has a handle no more that 6" off the dogs back & that the dog should be close to 40% of the handlers weight & a minimum of 60 lbs. Now whether this its actually scientific data or just form years of placing dogs with handlers I can't say but it sounded reasonable to me.

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Now I have nothing against any of the "standard" mobility breeds however Bones was a Labrador/Mastiff/Akita & my very 1st dog was a Labrador/Chow Chow. I didn't want to go with just another Labrador, I didn't feel I could handle the inevitable again.

I point this out because both of my previous dogs had been at least part working/guardian breeds. This gave me the confidence to add those dogs to my preliminary breed list.

​

There are a high percentage of people that attempt this & have to "wash" their prospect for any number of reasons. The truth is that although if you get very lucky you can owner train but only a small percentage of dogs have the personality to be service dogs. There are shelter dogs that go on to become service dogs also again it's not every dog.

 

So I hit the internet to find out what my options were, at this point i was not well versed with the ADA laws & had only known of program trained dogs. So I started there. I wrote to as many programs as I qualified for, the unfortunate truth is that there are more people in need then there are program dogs. My wait would have been 2 years at minimum for a dog & that didn't guarantee me a match. 

 

After a few weeks of research, a lot of Youtube videos, Emailing a few organizations, & reading the ADA laws. I realized I could train my own dog.

 

Great! Now what breed do I get? How do i decide? yep you guessed it more research but this time on types of dogs used for different types of service. Most of the dogs used for mobility are Labradors, Golden retrievers, Poodles & Shepards. I did come across a few articles that stated a mobility dog should be 50% the handlers height with a harness that has a handle no more that 6" off the dogs back & that the dog should be close to 40% of the handlers weight & a minimum of 60 lbs. Now whether this its actually scientific data or just form years of placing dogs with handlers I can't say but it sounded reasonable to me.

​

Now I have nothing against any of the "standard" mobility breeds however Bones was a Labrador/Mastiff/Akita & my very 1st dog was a Labrador/Chow Chow. I didn't want to go with just another Labrador, I didn't feel I could handle the inevitable again.

I point this out because both of my previous dogs had been at least part working/guardian breeds. This gave me the confidence to add those dogs to my preliminary breed list.

​

 Armed with a weight= 60-100 lbs & height= 24-28" I hit the research again. I looked at every breed that met my height & weight. It was a decent list. After that I narrowed it by avalibilty in my area, no reason to get my hopes up if I couldn't get the breed I wanted. I did confine my area to places I could travel to by car within a few days. I used a website called Gooddog to find breeders in my travel zone. I did this because I wanted to meet the parents & not just take the internet's word on it. That was a personal choice on my part, there is no reason that a video chat or zoom can't show you the puppies & parents. 

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It didn't stop there form the list of avaliable breeds I narrowed it down by energy level (low - moderate), grooming requirements (regular- low bathing & brushing), Trainability (moderate - eager to please), Friendliness (good-aloof with kids/strangers), Vocalization (low - moderate) in that order, I used the AKC website for this information. After that I was left with...

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*Bloodhound

*Rottweiler 

*Cane Corso

*Greater Swiss Mountain dog

*Grate Dane

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What next you ask? I think you can guess... Yep! Research. I knew some about these breeds & had had interactions with all of them at one point or another. Whether at a kennel, shelter, clinic, friend or neighbors. I had a basic idea of what to expect but I didn't want basic, I wanted fully informed & prepared for success. You guessed it, I hit Youtube, I watched all the "don't get a (insert breed) if...", "are you ready for (insert breed)?", "can you handle (insert breed)?" "everything you need to know about (insert breed)", even "10 things only Owners know about (insert breed)". 

 

After about a few weeks of that I was ready to contact breeders. I went back to Gooddog to contact breeders of my 5 potential breeds. Unfortunately,  there were only 4 out of 5 breeds that had puppies available in my search area. The Greater Swiss Mountain dog was not available. Again it was my decision to not widen my search area so that i  personally travel to get my puppy. I reached out to a number of breeders for all the 4 breeds left on my potential list. 

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I emailed all the breeders with potential litters & available puppies, I was honest & up front. No I hadn't own the breed before, I did have dog training, & veterinary care experience. The purpose of the dog would be to be trained as a service dog. & I only wanted a male. Some breeders responded that they didn't think their breed would be good as a service dog, some breeders tried to get me to take a female, some didn't respond at all. I did send more emails & applications to Cane Corso breeders not that there were more just that I liked the health testing they did, the look of their Sires, Dams & previous litters. I had 4 interviews.

Ultimately, it came down to my choice; Rottweiler or Cane Corso. I guess you figured out, I chose Cane Corso.

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My breeder Relic Cane Corso is from South Carolina. (It was a little out of over what we wanted to travel, however we extended our search area to SC because my boyfriends mother lives there so we were able to stay with her & have a family reunion of sorts.) Was amazing and continues to be amazing answering any question I have & all the questions I had starting the process. You see I had never bought a dog from a breeder. I was always the last option ​before the pound or euthanasia. (in our Akita, Zura's case. She was only 9 months old, I couldn't let that happen.) Relic was excited that another of her pups would be a service dog, She even knew what breeding pair would be best for the temperament we would need, & lucky me that pair had just confirmed a litter.

 

The journey doesn't end with confirming a breeder has a puppy or even when they pick a puppy for you. That's just the beginning. 

 

It was 4 months before I would be able to pick up my new fur-baby. I'm gonna be honest that 4 months was spent getting toys, picking out a large breed puppy food, coming up with a training plan, researching what to work on 1st for a service dog, what age should service dog task training start. Building a plan to work up to complex behavior chains (like the above seen DPT, it's not easy to teach a dog to lay on you a certain way). Even picking a language & the commands ( he's an Italian breed, I have  Italian ancestry, it seemed obvious that his commands should be Italian) Also it's was mentioned on a Youtube channel that training your Service dog in a different language keeps strangers from giving your dogs commands. (My daughter had already started training Zura her Akita in Japanese.) After the months of waiting it was finally time to make the trip, time to get my new puppy.

 

Let me just say that I was excited & terrified, I hadn't had a puppy that young in 15 years. Everyone has anxiety, mine was about

messing up my puppy, having to wash him & not having a service dog. Now anyone that has worked with a breeder knows that if your puppy doesn't work out they will take them back & find them a new home, however, you still need to buy a new puppy if you wanted to try again. Unfortunately, it's a risk we take buying & owner training. So yes I was worried about making a mistake with training him.

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Training a service dog is not like training a pet, a service dog is put under much more pressure, needs to learn a lot more commands, needs to learn complex behavior chains (responses to medical conditions), needs to learn when to alert, what to alert to & as their handler/trainer we need to help them learn that. We need to break it down, start from the most basic & build over time. That's a lot of pressure on the handler/trainer even for a professional trainer. Which is why most trainers stick to basic dog training. Teaching a pet to have manners, behave in the house, not be dog reactive, those are things trainers do daily. Teaching a dog to detect a spike in heart rate, a drop in blood sugar, the chemical change when a migraine is coming, how to counter balance, how to brace, that is not something your average trainer has done. Owner trainers are a very dedicated group of people, to say the least. 

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But before you can teach your prospect any actual service dog commands or tasks, they need to be obedience training. Come, sit, wait, stay... you know the basics. Oh, & their name is important. Things like leash manners & having a collar, I also strated vest training early. Just getting him used to having something go over his head & having something over his back. By doing this early I can show him his vest & he comes jumps up on something (I don't bend over to put a vest or car harness on him) puts he's head in. He is not what is called "gear shy" meaning he doesn't like putting gear on. 

 

The day we picked him up. We stared calling him by name Cerberus, we put a collar on him & a leash on him to get used to. He was very interested in following me around, of course I used this behavior to free shape a heel. I effectively started off leash training him then too. On our trip home after a few extra days in SC we used a leash to walk him, he was even alerting us he needed to go by whining. Once home he only got leashed at night (he's a dark brindle & impossible to see in the dark).