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podcast platforms. Welcome to Straight Up Dog Talk.
I'm Anne and we're back again with another amazing guest.
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This week. We have Haley, who I met on
Instagram with her dog Cider. That is a service dog in
training. And Haley has agreed to come
here tonight and give us some information on what it's like to
train a service dog when they'rea puppy and just some common
service dog etiquette. How are you doing tonight,
Haley? I am doing just wonderful.
(01:45):
How are you doing tonight? I am doing wonderful also.
I'm so glad that we finally get to.
Of this conversation and share it with the listeners.
We've talked a lot behind the scenes on Instagram, but you
have a really kind of unique story and you have to serve.
You have a service dog in training and then you have your
other service dog. So you have the whole kind of
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package. You've been through the whole
process and now you're going through it again so I think
it'll be really fun. So why don't you just tell
everybody a little bit about yourself and about the dogs?
OK, awesome. Well, First off, thank you for
inviting me to this wonderful podcast.
I really appreciate it. I am 30 years old.
I have two service dogs. I have a fully trained service
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dog who came from an organization who I got in 2018.
Name is Jake and he's a yellow lab.
And then I have a service dog intraining who is being trained to
kind of step into Jake's shoes when he gets ready to retire
because he's now 8 and will be retiring soon.
And my service dog in training Igot from a very reputable,
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amazing reader at the age of 8 weeks old.
He's also a lab and his name is Tater.
And so they are both wonderful puppers and they're both very
good. And I'm really excited to kind
of come on and share with you guys about them and hopefully
help spread some more education awareness on service animals.
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That the problem with the service industry is that there's
so many Gray areas and that there aren't really any
legitimate roles or certifications or anything that
you have to do. There's lots of things that are
recommended to do, like the Canine Good Citizen program is
recommended by the ADA and just basic obedience things.
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And they're not easy evaluationsto get through.
But I mean, that's kind of the point, right?
You want your dog to be very chill.
And not every dog is able to be a service dog.
And first of all, that's OK. We don't want to push a dog to
do something that they don't enjoy because now we just have a
dog that's so nervous or upset or combination of both.
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And then we can't really depend or rely on them because their
response time is not going to bewhat we need it to be in order
to be proficient when we're in medical distress.
Yeah, for sure. So the whole service dog thing,
it can be very difficult. There is a lot of dogs who can
be really, really great at asking and grasp the concept of
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being able to actually task their handlers, like doing
different types of medical alerts, catching on to diabetic
alerts, cardiac alerts, alertingto anxiety responses, PTSD
episodes, helping with night terrors.
There's just so many things thata service dog can do and the
dogs can be really great at. But then when it's time to step
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into the behavior aspect of things and the public access
aspect of things, it can be really difficult.
And that's where a lot of the times a service dog will wash
out. They might be really good at
tasking and might be really goodat home.
But then when it comes to the public access aspect of things
and being able to be confident and not stressed and
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well-rounded in so many different types of situations.
Because trust me, when you're out and about with a service
dog, you will come into so many different types of situations
and being able to have a dog that can be reliable and be
trusted to behave properly and all different types of
situations. And don't get me wrong, service
all fully trained or not, do make mistakes.
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It is OK for that to happen, butit goes into, is it just a
mistake or then you have that fine line, Oh, my dog made a
mistake. That's fine.
But if it's a continuous thing that's happening over and over
and over again and you can't geta handle on it, and that's a
different thing. And so like I was saying, it
just goes into my dog might be really good at tasking, but the
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behavior and confidence and everything else needed to be
able to be an actual service animal out in public might not
be there. And so that's where people
really struggle. They'll be like, oh, my dog is
so great with all of its tasks. It's a service dog.
And but it's in reality, it might not be ready because it
can't handle high stressful situations.
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It gets stressed out easily. There's things that spook it.
And when you're training a service dog, that's bound to
happen. And let me tell you as someone
who's training a service dog themselves, it happens a lot and
that's OK. It's just about working through
that stuff and making sure that dog realizes I don't have to be
scared of that and moving on from that.
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And as long as the dog can get scared and then move forward,
then that's OK. That's a different thing.
It's the dogs that become fearful reactive is just
constantly stress, Cansing, yawning, all the stress signs
consistently while out about. You might have to be like, is my
dog really cut out for this? So it is definitely the thing
that a lot of people struggle with.
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If I could touch on the whole certification thing, I know the
ADA says there's no certifications required for
service animals and that's fine.And I don't think there should
be, unless we can get a handle on all of the scam website, all
of the fake registries online, all of the people selling fake
IDs and certificates. Because until those websites are
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shut down, then all the people that are going online to get
these things are still going to be able to do it.
And whether or not the ADA requires a certificate or
registration ID, whatever it maybe themselves, all these people
are still going to be able to gospend $50 online and get a cheap
fake certificate, be like, yeah,here's my certified dog.
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And then businesses are still going to be like, yeah, it's
legit. I think that that's.
A majority of the problem right there is that the ADA needs to
take responsibility here in thissituation and say, OK, we have a
registry or we have a this or wehave a that.
And anything that doesn't specifically say this on this
card, here's an example of it orhere's a copy of the document
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that you'd have to have. Whatever that these sites and
even Amazon, you can go on Amazon and buy a vest.
And that's another thing. I've had a conversation with
people who make service dog vests and leashes and things
like that. A lot of them are totally
willing to sign up and get authorized to sell service dog.
I'm authorized to da, da, da. They're all totally fine with
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that. None of the people who are
makers care about that. They would prefer to know that
they're selling their equipment to somebody who is the
legitimate service versus being part of the problem.
And like I said, I've spoke to several of the makers and
they're all totally fine with that.
They're like, OK, well, yeah, we'll pay a membership fee or
we'll do whatever. And I think that that is just
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something that unfortunately is going to have to come down the
the tunnel. And I think it will at some
point with the way things are changing.
And I know that there's some airlines that are talking about
changing thing for service dogs and who's really allowed and all
that kind of stuff. I want to get back to what you
were saying about obedience and tasking, because I think that a
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lot of people don't realize the obedience and a strong
foundation of skills and socialization be your first
priority. Because if your dog can't go out
and about with you, then teaching them to task is great
and they can help you at home, but it's going to be totally
useless to you in public if they're going to freak out.
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And like you said, you've had all manner of things happen to
you. Oh yeah.
All kinds of people walk up to you, ask you questions, try to
pet cider, but you've had reallygood interactions and you've had
some kind of not so good interactions.
So yeah, this is kind of a mixedbag when it comes to that.
When you started training cider,how did how did you start?
Where did you start? When he came home to me at 8
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weeks old, the first thing I wasreally focused on when he first
came home is just making sure hewas comfortable with me and
comfortable with the environmentin our household.
It was a lot for him. He came home, there was another
dog here. We have 2 cats and we had a
bearded dragon. We had a full household.
My fiance who lives here, plus Ihave a friend slash roommate who
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stays with us. So it was it was very different
for him. He'd never seen cats before,
he'd never been to a house like this, he'd never known anything
different. So when he first came home it
was really important to just really get him familiar lives
with the people here and comfortable with me bonding.
Spent a lot of days when he first came home where I would
hand feed him his meals so we could bond.
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I don't. I didn't think I fed him in a
bowl or anything until he was atleast 13 or 14 weeks old.
Until then I was hand feeding him meals or using them for
training sessions, using them toget comfortable with things.
I would literally just go out inthe living room and sit in front
of him and just let him take kibble out of my hand.
When I first got him, I just really wanted him to get used to
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me. Used to things going on around,
the cats would go up to him and I would just feed him kibble
when he didn't react to the catswalking around him.
Just him getting used to that. I would take him outside anytime
he went to the bathroom. That's another thing, I'd feed
him cable and I got him in the dead of winter.
So when he was at the Breeders, he never actually stepped foot
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in snow until he came home with me.
The snow was very different for him.
When he first got here, he was like, oh, I'm supposed to go to
the bathroom in this? What?
I was surprised. You did great.
You didn't have any accidents for the first few weeks he was
here with me. He did great.
Of course, I brought him out every hour.
That's the fact. Every hour through the night I
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was getting up and bringing him out.
We didn't have any accidents. So it it worked out well.
But yeah, it was really just about when I first got him here,
familiarizing him with things, bonding with him, just feeding
him and making him realize that interactions are fun and good
and happy. That was really my main focus.
And then after the first two weeks or so, I started
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introducing seeing things like them and just basic things,
getting him used to the environment outside, taking him
out, started doing luring exercises with him on and off of
a leash for very short periods out of time.
He's only 910 weeks old. I'm not asking him very much.
We're doing like 5 minutes. OK, so I take him outside in the
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driveway and do some luring on aleash with him for 5 minutes.
And then I get really excited. Oh my God, this time you did.
I do it around my kitchen in my house and I would do this a few
times a day, maybe 5 minutes outof time.
We would do on a leash, some luring exercises.
I was doing luring onto a stool up into his crate.
Lots of crate game. Lots of crate to get him used to
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his crate because for the first few nights he was not a happy
puppy in his crate. But we did lots of crate games,
fed him enrichment toys in his crate.
I literally laid in his crate with him and just hand fed him
kibble, just laying there getting him comfortable.
After a few days he's like, Oh yeah, this isn't so bad.
Hey. It was just really about basic,
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basic things the first few weeksand no tasking, no bringing him
in public, nothing like that. It was really just getting him
used to being here with me, usedto me as a person.
Basic things like luring on a leash, luring around into
different confident situations like up on a stool, up the
stairs, up on some weird surfaces, Just very basic.
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Thanks. I think that that's really
important as a dog trainer. That's something that I
encourage that I've learned frommy mentors is that everything
you teach, you should be teaching at home first anyway.
You don't just automatically go to the front yard.
You don't automatically just getin the car.
You don't just walk around the block.
Your dog is like a baby. It doesn't know anything and it
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doesn't speak the same language as you.
So you can say sit or down or fetch or whatever and your dog
is going to be like, like what? What if I lured him into a sit
position? I don't even think I'd tear the
word sit to that until he was 11weeks old.
I'd lure him into a down, I'd lure him into a sit, he would do
it no problem. But I wasn't tearing that word
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with those commands yet because I didn't want to over stimulate
him. I didn't want to confuse him.
It was just all about luring himinto the positions I want.
Same with Tom, I would put him in a down and then I'd lure him
right towards me and whilst I backed up and just have him
follow me in pair. That would come yet though, it
was just about what I was asking, body language.
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There was no actual commands until he was 10 1/2, eleven
weeks old I think. Important too, because I think
the repetition is the thing thatIA lot of people don't
understand is that for every time a dog has done something
wrong, they need to do it right two more times.
So that means that for every time you've done something
wrong, then your dog needs to successfully do it right three
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times in in order for that to start becoming a process in
their head that they're like, oh, so right out of the gate,
you were setting yourself up forsuccess by setting very low
expectations and going through things.
He was seeing his food, making it just part of your routine and
being the resource. Because when you're feeding him
out of the bowl, that's 1520 minutes worth of training or
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longer, especially if you're breaking it up.
And when you have a puppy, like he said, keep it short, keep it
sweet and end on success. If they start to struggle, get
that last one in there, say yes,give them their reward, good
job, and then let them go do something else for a while.
Yep, very much so. Eiders now just over nine months
old. I can't tell you how many times
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up until this point there's beentimes where we'd be doing a
training session, whether it's at home, whether it was out in a
store, whether it was at a park,wherever it may be.
And you could just tell his mindwas just not there.
And I'm like, OK, today is not the day.
We're just going to do somethingelse and we'd go play ball and
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practice just bringing the ball back and forth to me and just
doing something different because his focus was just not
there and that's OK. I mean, he's a puppy.
That's going to happen and he needs to know that.
I'm not going to get frustrated with him for not being able to
do things 24/7. He's a puppy.
If there's a day that he's telling me he's not wanting to
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do that, I'm going to listen. I'm not going to push him.
So he flustered. That won't do anything.
He won't learn anything from I. Think that goes for every dog
too. I mean, that's not just a
service dog thing. That's everybody, every dog,
their dog thing. Not getting frustrated with our
dogs, that's the best thing thatwe can do for them because they
don't understand why we're frustrated.
They know we're upset. They can tell and they can smell
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it, they can see it, they can read our body language, but
again, they don't understand humans, so they don't understand
99% of the words that just came out of your mouth when you're
over there. Like taking dirt and throw on a
temper tantrum because your dog didn't do whatever it was that
you wanted and taking a beat. Sometimes that's just what you
have to do. I'm going to share kind of a
crazy thing that happened to us earlier this week.
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We had a hot air balloon almost land in our yard the other day
and I didn't see it at 1st. And Fitz is doing this thing.
He points with this talk. He's alerting, he's alerting.
I'm like, what the heck, Is he alerting too?
And I'm like looking around. I'm thinking the way that he's
looking, he's looking at a tree.And I'm like, is he getting
chewed out by a squirrel? What is happening here?
And so I walk around the side ofthe house and here comes this
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balloon just drifting down into our yard.
If this had happened year ago, if this has happened two years
ago, he would have freaked out and he probably would have peed
and he probably would have triedto hide and it would have been a
big, huge ordeal. But instead he just alerted to
it and then he asked to go inside and then he went and he
took a nap. That is because we have focused
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so hard on desensitizing loud noises towards cars, towards
large vehicles, the Amazon truck, all of those things you
have to do each and every singleone of those individually.
You cannot rush. It's going to take as long as it
takes, unfortunately. And I will say there are time,
well, I preach to the choir. Don't get frustrated with your
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dog. There are certainly times that I
have gotten frustrated and it will happen.
And it's so crazy because I can be frustrated and not even raise
my voice at plan or not do anything.
But he can tell. He can just tell I am frustrated
and I just have to walk away. And sometimes that's all you
have to do. And that is the best thing to do
because you don't want to do something that's going to push
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back your training with your dogor make them fearful.
Because if they associate you getting frustrated with
something, then they're going tobe unsure of whatever that thing
is next time. They're not going to understand.
Walking away is the hardest thing, yet the most valuable
thing I have learned. And I'm by no means at a dog
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trainer. I just train my own service dog.
I'm not certified dog trainer. I don't claim to be some dog
trainer. I just trained my own service
dog. That is one of the hardest
things I've had to learn from experiencing with training my
own dog is you cannot show them that you're frustrated.
If that means you walk away and do something else and let them
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go play, then that's what you need to do.
And then come back and revisit what it was you were trying to
do before, because you were going to get.
Nowhere. I can't tell you how many times,
especially with fits, there's totally different dog, totally
different learning style. I've never had a dog with such
high drive to play go, go, go all the time.
I can't tell you how many times that dog has made me cry and
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I've just had to be like, hey song, just go kennel for a
little bit so I can cry and you don't have to feel bad about it
because it's hard. It's hard.
Everything's fine it. Is hard.
I think the thing that we don't talk about enough either is that
training your dog is hard. Training a service dog hard
Yeah, because it has to be so much more specific because it is
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task oriented, because they do have have to behave in public.
And like you said, yeah, they can make a mistake, but they
can't be howling in the Home Depot and they can't be trying
to get into the bacon at the grocery store, whipping at
people or looking for attention from people.
They they have to behave a different way because they do
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have a higher standard than a regular pet dog does.
Yes, they are dogs. Yes, they can be silly and make
mistakes and yes, they do need rest and they do need breaks and
they need days off, but for a certain.
Service dog, 99% of their life is working because that's what
we've trained them for and most service dogs love it.
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They love it. They love it when they're
working. They're like, yes, I'm all in.
Oh, I'm alerting to you and they're happy when they're
alerting to you, given them you're in medical distress.
They're like, I did it really thank you.
Let me take my pill or give myself a shot or what a shirt is
that you need to do. The thing is you have to
remember is that even though youare in medical distress, you
(20:57):
still have to be positive and reward the dog because that one
time that it's a negative association, you have set
yourself back and then you have to rework it.
So I can imagine that it can be pretty stressful.
Why don't you tell us a funny story about Cider and his
training that was maybe an interaction, maybe not an
(21:17):
interaction that was positive and funny.
Oh, there's so many with him. He is an absolute character.
He's definitely a goofy boy. Love him to bed and he is at his
adolescent stage in his puppyhood right now, so he can
be quite the character, especially right now.
You too. So that's the combo.
(21:38):
Yeah, he's cute, and thank God he is.
There's definitely been some funny moments now when it comes
to doing training. A lot of the times, now that
he's older, I let him make his own decision.
I'll give him the opportunity tomake the correct decision before
I correct him as a funny story. The other today we were in the
grocery store and there was one of those robo cleaner and it
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goes around the grocery store and it looks like this.
It's literally like this giant. I'm trying to describe it for
you guys. It's like this giant tall
looking, Gray, thick almost thatgoes straight up and down and
it's probably like a foot wide by like foot in length and then
like 8 feet tall. The thing is huge and it goes
around and it cleans the the floors of the grocery store.
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So we were there the other day and the thing was going around
the aisle and it was the first time it had been around the
aisle since I had been there with cider.
So this is definitely a new experience for him.
We went to go walk by it. We weren't super close to it,
but we went to go walk by it andall of a sudden he sees it out
of the corner of his eye and he just stops, get in his trucks
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and looks over at it. He doesn't do anything.
He just stops and stands there. He was looking over at it and he
looks back at me and then he looks over at it and I'm just
kind of waiting him for him to make the correct decision to
because he kind of stopped and Ikept going and he was a little
far behind me. So I was waiting for him to make
the decision to get back into its heel and continue going on.
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And like I said, he's at the stage now where I kind of wait
for him to make the decision andsee what he's going to do.
And then if he doesn't do what he should, but then I'll correct
them. So he was just stopped staring
at it. And then he kind of, and then he
looked up at me, looked back at it, and then he moved forward
and he came back to me and I waslike, you good boy, good boy.
So that we walked around and we went back to it and then he was
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fine with it. And I thought it was just the
funniest thing because the look,I wish I had a video of it, the
look on his face of like, what in the heck is that?
Like it was just like he didn't do anything.
He just like stopped dead in histrack, all four feet on the
ground. And he was like, what is that
thing? Like what in the hat?
And then like I said, we kept going and it was fine, but I
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just thought he was the funniestthing.
He was so confused by it at first.
Like I've never seen this beforebut it.
Sounds like it's a giant robot vacuum.
We have a shark robot vacuum andI.
Can't tell you how much. Time I spent working with my
dogs so that when I run that vacuum, they just walk by it.
They walk around it. It doesn't matter if it bumps
(24:13):
into them. They're like, oh, and then they
move. Yeah, we worked on that.
We practiced that because I knewthat they were both good enough
like it and they didn't necessarily don't like it still.
But now they don't park in it orcower from it or freak out about
it. You have to like you said, that
was the first opportunity you had and you gave him the choice.
So when you said correct, I would like to know how when you
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say you would correct him, what does that look like?
Now that he's older, he knows what the leave it mean.
Obviously that's something I hadto teach him, but he knows what
the event means and basically ifI go to correct him, I tell him
cider leave it and then if he doesn't listen to the leave it,
which normally he does, he's very good.
He's very good about leaving things.
When I tell him to leave it, which I am so grateful for, he's
(24:57):
like the best. But if I tell him to leave it
and he's like, I'm not really listening to you right now.
Sometimes I'll take a piece of food and I'll lure him back into
the position I want him in or I'll lure him away from whatever
the distraction may be. Sometimes if somebody comes up
and starts talking to us and they stand right next to him and
he'll stick his nose up in the air and try and sniff, I'll be
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like excited, leave it. I'll let him make the decision
to stop. And if he doesn't, I'll just
reach my hand down with a piece of kibble and we'll correct him
from not sniffing up in the air or sniffing towards them.
And then that's the end of that.When I say correction, it's very
loose term that I use, but it's just basically luring him.
And This is why luring was so important when he was a puppy.
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It's basically luring him back into a position I need him in,
or away from the distraction, orgetting his attention back on
me, whatever it may be. For you and for everybody else,
that's called a positive interrupter.
You're giving him the option to do the right thing.
And then if he doesn't, then politely interrupt him with
positive reinforcement and say, look, instead.
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It's very effective and it keepseverything that have been happy
and flowing the way that we wantit to, right?
So, yeah, how you train is how Itrain.
We've had this conversation before and yeah, I think that
it's just one of those things where sometimes people are like,
well, what does that mean and how does that look?
So if anybody wants to look up positive interrupter, there you
go. That's what the terminology is
for. So tell me the worst experience
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that you've had with him in training?
With him, in terms of him or theworst people, with people, OK,
OK. There's been, in the short time
that I've had him, I've had morecrappy experiences with people
than I have in the six years I've had J.
And that's with a lot people seea puppy and they're like, my
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God, it's a puppy. And it's like, I would say we've
had issues with a lot of issues with workplaces and access
issues, unfortunately. And I think probably the biggest
issue we've had is off leash stop.
Now. We had an issue inside of a Home
Depot with an off leash German Shepherd that came running up to
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him. At the time he was 5 1/2 months
old. He's never been reactive or
fearful towards dogs, which I amso grateful for.
I did a lot of training with himup until this point, just being
around all different types of dogs, and I think that's really
helps. But he's never been reactive and
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fearful towards other dogs, and I am just so thankful for that.
He's such a good boy. He's never barked down another
dog, he's never lunged towards another dog, nothing.
We had this awfully Sherman Shepherd come running up right
into his face. Then he tried to get away from
from the dog by moving around meand the dog just followed him,
(27:46):
chased him in a circle. And so I grabbed the dog.
He had a choke collar on and I didn't choke the dog by any
means. I just grabbed him by kind of
like the scruff of his neck to get him to stop running after
cider. I was like, hey, can you please
get your dog? I have this video on my social
media, so for anyone who wants to go look at it, it is on my
(28:07):
social media pages and you can see what happened.
But I was like, hey, please to get your dog.
And the guy was like, oh, he's fine, He's fine.
I'm like, no, your dog needs to be on a leash.
We're in a store. He's like, it's just a
department store. He's fine, He's friendly.
I'm like, it doesn't matter. My dog's a service dog in
training and I don't want an unfamiliar dog getting up in his
face. I don't know your dog like.
(28:29):
So finally shooed the dog away and he started running back the
other direction. And the guy that was with the
guy that owned the dog just grabbed the dog.
I don't even think the guy had aleash in the store with him
because the other guy just held the dog by the collar at the
front of the store until the guywas done.
(28:49):
And I think one of the things that bothered me the most was
not only was he just so oblivionand rude, the workers did
absolutely nothing. And that's a whole nother issue
in in itself. Don't get me wrong, I'm not
expecting a worker to jump in between the two dogs.
God forbid if a dog fight ever broke out or something really
(29:10):
messy was happening. I'm not expecting a worker to
jump in between the dogs or do anything and that sort of thing.
But if a dog is clearly out of control and not behaving in a
store, then they need to ask theperson with the dog to remove
the dog from the store. And if story doesn't matter,
especially in a non pet friendlystore, there's some home depots
in the United States that are pet friendly and there's a lot
(29:32):
of home depots that are actuallynot pet friendly anymore.
And the Home Depot that I was atwas actually not pet friendly.
So I had to go through this whole thing.
None of the managers, none of the workers, they don't enforce
it at all. They say as long as the dogs are
well behaved, they let them in and that's great.
But this dog is not well behaved.
He's not on a leash. And I want to know why none of
(29:54):
the workers or a manager came over, which there was tons of
workers and one of the managers standing right there watching
the whole thing. Why None of them said, hey, can
you take your dog out of the store?
If you can't put it on a leash, at least nothing was done about
it. That type of thing is so
frustrating to me because there's so many uneducated
(30:15):
employees and managers, but I also think there's a lot of
educated employee and managers who just don't do anything.
And so that was just one of the many situations I've had with
him with off leash dogs. And we I can count we've had
seven different encounters with an off leash dog in his nine
months. Let's just make this really
(30:36):
clear. Just to make it really clear,
the off leash my dog is friendlyguys is not acceptable.
It doesn't matter if you are in a store, if you're in a park, if
you're in a parking lot, if you're in a neighborhood.
There are leash laws for a reason.
There are dogs that are not approachable, not friendly.
If you came at me and your dog was running at me, then you said
(30:59):
my dog is friendly, I would be yelling back.
Mine is not. It's not just dangerous for me,
it's dangerous for your dog too.I know what's going to happen.
Fitz is a chicken and he's goingto run in the other direction,
but that's not what's going to happen.
It's that great other dog. This is how fights happen and
dog bites happen and all these scary things.
We need to get past this my dog is friendly thing because it's
(31:21):
not OK. Because not everyone has a dog
that's approachable. Not everyone wants to be
approached by your dog. And sometimes when you're doing
things like training your service dog, you can't be
approached. You need to be left alone.
So you're a distraction, you're something new in the
environment, but that's already challenging enough without the
dog chasing your service dog around.
(31:42):
I remember when I saw that on your Instagram, I was just like,
I cannot believe this. But the guy's just like, it's
fine. We're in the store.
He's fine. Why would you even want your dog
if it can't be controlled with your voice off leash in a Home
Depot? There's so many things in that
store that's dangerous to your dog.
Machinery, wood, chemical. There's just so much in Home
(32:04):
Depots. I just don't get out.
That's just so dangerous, not only for other people and my
dog, but your dog as well. Think about it.
And they get loose in the section that has lumber and
something falls over. Right.
And that's. Dangerous for employees, for the
dog, for everybody. So that's one of those areas
that we definitely need to be a little bit more mindful at.
I do want to touch on one more thing.
We have a little bit of time left, but I'm going to go over
(32:26):
this because I think this is oneof the things where people get
lost. And he said there are places
that allow and there are places that don't allow, but the
problem is that there isn't the education.
So let's talk about qualifications for a service dog
and let's talk about the letter,because it is my understanding,
the letter of medical necessity is something that you should
(32:48):
have on your person or your dog at all times.
And it should have emergency contact info.
It should have the list of medications, and it should have
information on what to do if thedog comes to you and is asking
you to come back to them. It should have some sort of
instructions. That is my understanding of the
situation. You have had a service dog for
(33:08):
many years, now you're training another one.
So if you could clarify any of that or comment on the letter of
medical necessity and how you truly obtain 1 not going through
a website and talking to some random person and then saying
you're allowed to have a servicedog, if you could talk a little
bit about that. Of course to get a letter you
would go to your doctor. Some people say you can go to a
(33:31):
psychiatrist, but I would go to your actual primary care doctor
and tell them I have a service dog.
A lot of the times doctors will recommend a service animal for
you or there are some doctors that actually aren't very
educated on service animals and you may obtain a service animal
without your doctor knowing. When you have a legitimate
(33:51):
service dog, you go to your doctor and say, hey, I have a
service dog for you know these conditions that your doctor
knows about obviously, and you just ask him to write a letter.
They'll they'll format it, they'll word it the way they do
it. Each doctor does it differently,
but it basically says this person has a service dog for
their disabilities and I recommend that the service dog
(34:12):
is with them at all times when accessible.
It's basically a letter saying the doctors think that the dog
should be with the handler and that the handler needs the dog
to be able to have a functioninglifestyle.
It doesn't need to go into depthabout what conditions you have
exactly. Now in terms of having something
on you that says what can be done in an emergency situation,
(34:36):
that goes based on handler. I think it's not a bad thing.
I have a medicine bag inside of my bag and in my meds bag I have
a medical card that has some of my information on it.
My allergies, emergency contact numbers in case for whatever
reason I was to pass out, go unconscious, somebody need to
(34:58):
call an ambulance for me whatever the reason may be.
I have a card that on my person at all times that does give some
information if I needed help. Now with that being said, the
ADA, technically you see a lot of these things online, like if
a dog comes to you without a human, follow it, OK, that's
true. But per the ADA, the dog should
(35:18):
not be leaving the person who isdown unconscious, having a
seizure, whatever it may be, to go find another person.
And so this is another thing that's kind of a Gray area, but
per the actual ADA, that is not considered a task for a service
dog because they don't want the dog to be running around while
(35:41):
you're unconscious on the floor or seething or in a diabetic
episode, whatever it may be. The dog should be trained to
stay with you all time during these episodes.
So it's always good to carry something with you.
Everyone needs to do it for every type of disability.
Sometimes people with just everyday anxiety or PTSD episode
(36:03):
or things like that, they choosenot to carry the card with them
because they might not fast out or go unconscious or have an
allergic reaction that requires an EpiPen or something like
that. It's not something that needs a
card for, but for disabilities that you can use one for, I do
recommend it. It can be helpful just to have
something somewhere on your person that somebody can look
(36:25):
for. Sometimes people will put them
inside of their dog's vest. If they use a vest or a harness,
sometimes they'll put a note that says medical information in
my bag inside one of the pockets.
But not all dogs were vesting harnesses.
So it can be tough, but it's notbad to have something with you
in terms of the doctor letter, that's not something you need
(36:46):
with you at all times. I don't personally carry mine
around. I've used it for situations with
schooling. I've used it for situations with
airlines. I've used it for situations work
wise. Workplaces can request the
doctor's letter. Landlords can request to see a
doctor's letter. Airplanes sometimes can request
(37:07):
to see a doctor's letter, colleges, high schools, that
type of thing. Those places can request to see
your doctor's letter saying, oh,this is medically necessary for
this person. However, everyday businesses,
they can't request that type of thing.
So I don't even bother carrying mine with me.
I don't want to lose it. I don't want other people to see
it. I don't even carry mine with me.
(37:27):
But that's in terms of my point of view.
From what I've experienced, that's how I see things in that
type of situation. See, I agree with having the
card that has the emergency information or if your hospital
preference or if there's an EpiPen in my bag kind of thing.
I think that those things are really important because if your
(37:48):
dog is trained and it's sitting there and it's barking and it's
barking and barking and barking,eventually somebody is going to
walk up and try to figure out what's happening.
It might take 10 people, but eventually somebody hopefully is
going to call 911 and come over and, and check you out and all
of that kind of stuff. And I think that that is going
to help you be in a better situation medically, especially
(38:12):
if you're completely out of it and you can't help yourself and
your dog can't obviously stab you with an EpiPen.
So you got to jam those in there.
They're. Yeah.
And I don't, I have to use one. I don't like to do it.
So I don't think I would want mydog to jam me with it.
No, and it's also an ease of mind too.
As somebody who also has very bad anxiety about certain
things, just having that with mein case I Ebola.
(38:34):
Now, I don't go many places by myself, but sure, when I do go
places by myself, having that with me, it just kind of eases
your mind. If something was to happen, this
is very ease of access. Hopefully someone would look for
something and it would be there.That's why I was under the
impression that having it on thedog's vest was the best place to
have it, just because more than likely the person is going to
(38:57):
pat down the dog before they're going to pat down you.
But you are right, a lot of people don't have service capes,
vests or furnaces on their dogs.Another service dog trainer that
I talked to, she said that sometimes they have medical
alert tags on the dog's tag collar that says more
information in the vest or access code for emergency
(39:17):
contact for owners phone is thisor whatever.
And it's on the dog tag so that people know where to look.
She said a lot of people are going to take the dog's collar
and say, OK, what's this dog's name and try to go from there.
That's actually kind of smart. I had never thought about that.
I just think it's really interesting.
Everybody sings a little bit differently.
(39:37):
I have blown on the plane with Fitz before, and I fill out a
lot of paperwork to do. Yeah.
I mean, he's just, he's just an emotional support dog.
And I know that they're changinglaws about that.
I don't think that you can fly with emotional support dogs
anymore. I'm nine, 100%.
Some airlines that are pet friendly that obviously they're
pet friendly they allow Esas andthe pets and stuff.
(39:59):
But if it's a non pet friendly airline as far as I.
I know from the things I've readand understood if the airline is
not allowing pets then it is strictly just changing to
service dogs only. Which kind of stinks because
emotional support animals on airplanes wasn't necessarily a
big deal. It's just there's so many people
that ruined it for people who have legitimate emotional
(40:22):
support animals that would need to travel with their owners.
It's just made this big mess andnow everyone loses because going
back to the whole service dog thing, it happened with
emotional support animals and service dog.
There's so many people who are claiming they have an emotional
support animal thinking it's thesame thing as a service dog.
And they're like, I'm going to bring my yapping Chihuahua
(40:44):
emotional support animal into Walmart with me or my pickle mix
emotional support animal in the Target with me.
And the workers aren't educated to know the difference.
And they're like, Yep, it's my EFA with this EFA vest on or
service dog vest that says service dog that's actually an
emotional support animal. And those people are not only
(41:05):
making it harder for service animals, but they're also
ruining it for legitimate emotional support animals, which
is just crappy, that. Comes all back to what we talked
about at the beginning, which isthe foundations of obedience and
behavior and making sure that your dog is well mannered and
they can behave and act accordingly in public spaces.
And a lot of people coming and saying, oh, I have this
(41:26):
emotional support, OK, maybe your dog is really helpful to
you when you're at home, when you're going through anxiety and
all that kind of stuff. That doesn't mean your dog is
good out in the world. And if you haven't practiced it
and you have taken your dog straight from your living room
to Target, and you're expecting your dog not to have some kind
of feelings? About it, yeah, the emotional
support animals aren't even allowed in most places, aren't
(41:48):
even allowed in non pet friendlystores.
Now I know that there are some states in the United States that
are a little more lenient. I think California, New York, I
think those are just two of the examples.
They're a little more lenient for their state laws on where EF
as can go. Some business owners that have
coffee shops and things like that decide the emotional forum.
(42:09):
Well, that's up to the owner's discretion.
But when it comes to Walmart, Target, grocery stores, things
like that, technically, per the law, emotional support animals
aren't even allowed to be in those places.
And so that's where you have uneducated people that are
saying their dog is an emotionalsupport animal.
But if they really actually knewanything, they would know it
doesn't matter. You can tell me your dog is an
(42:31):
emotional support animal, but technically with you just saying
that it's not allowed. But again, it goes back to not
only the people who have the animal being uneducated, but the
employees themselves being uneducated, so they won't do
anything. Yeah, no, I completely agree.
Well, we are running out of time, but I do want to give you
the opportunity to leave the listeners with something.
And I also want to encourage youguys to follow Haley and also
(42:55):
kind of keep an eye out because we have some Sam's and some
talks in the works, maybe have some lives and maybe some
collaborative stuff that we're going to be doing together going
forward just to continue this education.
And of course, Haley will be back.
So keep an eye out for her episode.
What would you like to leave thelisteners with?
I just want to say my whole social media platform is just
(43:15):
based around spreading positive awareness on not only service
dogs but disabilities in general.
And I always tell people if you ever have a question, feel free
to reach out to me. I will do my best to respond.
I don't always see all my messages because between
Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or YouTube, we get a fair
amount. So I don't always see all of
(43:36):
them. But if you do have a question
about your dog or training or anything like that, I will do my
absolute best to always answer and see what I can do to help in
any way that I can. Listen to your dog.
They'll always tell you how they're feeling, no matter what
it's really. Awesome to work with other
people with disabilities who understand this lifestyle.
I don't highlight that about myself a whole lot because
(43:59):
that's not necessarily what my main platform is.
Mine is more about just education about dogs in general
and training and stuff like that.
I am legally disabled and it is really important to talk about
these things because we do have some harder obstacles that we
have to overcome sometimes. And unfortunately it happens a
lot more in the service dog areathan you guys think.
(44:20):
So if you need anything, reach out to Haley, reach out to me,
ask your questions and we will see you guys next week on
Straight Up Dog Talk. Straight Up Dog Talk was created
by Emily Breslin. It is edited and produced under
the supervision of Straight Up Dog Talk LLC and Emily Breslin.
If you're enjoying this podcast,follow or subscribe and be sure
you don't miss an episode and leave us a review on your
(44:43):
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Unpacked with Jerry Sheriff and Madison Simpson.
Thanks for listening to StraightUp Dog Talk.
See you next week.