Hi! :D

[Saeleofu]

Hello!

I have a 2 year old white boxer (all natural at that! long tail and floppy ears) that I have had for just over a year. His name is Gavroche. I got him last July. I work at a vet clinic, and one of our clients found him out in the country and brought him in to us. She already had 6 dogs at the time, so she couldn't keep him, too. I didn't think I'd be able to have him either, but everything worked out just perfectly and I took him home after he was at the clinic for 3 weeks. The person that brought him in said she had seen him running around for several weeks before she caught him. Anyway, he is an awesome dog. I feel so lucky to have him.

I trained him in the basics, and the following May he passed his CGC (on the first try). I was proud of him, as he has had not formal classes, and he is the first dog I have trained all by myself. I have been helping my dad train dogs for years (he has been training dogs for over 40 years) , but this was my first shot at doing it on my own.

For the past 4 months or so he has been the demo dog for my dad's obedience classes. I've taken the opportunity to work on some skills that I was not previously experienced with training - such as fronts and finishes. I plan to start Rally competition with him in the spring - assuming AKC and/or UKC accept him as boxer for PAL/ILP. I plan on taking a Rally class starting in January for more distraction work, help with some patterns I find a but confusing, and help with entering events (I have never competed in any dog show before).

I am currently working on a study for school regarding reading and therapy dogs, and he will be my therapy dog for that study. Data collection should start in about 2 weeks, assuming it gets approved by the IRB. (If anyone's in south-central Kansas and ha a school-aged child and are interested in participating, let me know and I'll give you more details!).

Most recently, I have made a set of weave poles and a simple jump out of thin wooden downs, and we've been working on that a bit, as well as brushing up on the "drop"/emergency down command (I've neglected to keep up with it, and he's gotten a little rusty). I made these because recently we were at a fundraising event called Woofstock and they had a set of practice weaves, and the first time through them he did it nearly perfectly (with the help of a squeaky toy, of course) and he absolutely adores tunnels. I don't have the tome or the money for agility classes, and my dad doesn't have the equipment for agility, so I'm going to teach him as much as I can on my own, and start classes to train for competition whenever I can.

In addition to the basics, he knows how to turn off the lights, jump through a hoop, wave, roll over, shake, high five, and a few other cutesy tricks.

Gavroche is also an Emotional Support Animal for me. I don't know how many people here are familiar with the term, but it's basically a doctor-orderd pet for people who are elderly or have mental disabilities (I am autistic [HFA/Asperger's], which I do not see as a psychiatric disability but rather a neurological disability, but for legal purposes it's typically in the same category). They do NOT have public access as they are not service dogs, but they are allowed in no-pets housing under certain conditions, and they are allowed in the cabin on planes. I do live in a no-pets apartment with him. A few days ago I got the greatest compliment I ever could have asked for - my next door neighbor asked me where my dog was as I was coming home from work, and I told her he's in my apartment - she was shocked and said "Wow! He's so quiet! I never even knew you had a dog until I saw him the other day." I have been living here for over 2 months.

I am currently a senior psychology major with an emphasis on community psychology, and a minor in biology. I will be graduating in May, and after that I plan to go to the Bergin University of Canine Studies in Santa Rose and learn to train service dogs. My ultimate goal is to have my own service dog school to train service dogs for ADULTS on the autism spectrum. I will eventually have my own service dog - whether it's one I train myself or one that I get from a program - and if anyone has any interest in the types of tasks I plan on training I will post a link to my task "wish list. I oppose the use of service dogs for children, and people who use tether dogs for their autistic kids disgust me. I like the idea of skilled companion dogs for such children, which are similar to ESAs and also do not have public access. Service dogs do not belong in elementary schools or middle schools, and only rarely in high schools (I did go to high school with a boy that had a seizure alert/response dog, and he did very well with his dog, so it can be done under the right circumstances). You will probably find that when it comes to service dogs and autism, I am highly opinionated.

Now that I have rambled on long enough, I'll wrap it up I am very open to any questions

[Barb04]

Welcome to Chaz!

[bubbatd]

Welcome !!! A neat story !

[Zoom]

Welcome again; may I ask why you are opposed to children having service dogs and why tether dogs are such a strong issue for you?

[Saeleofu]

Thanks for the welcomes

Welcome again; may I ask why you are opposed to children having service dogs and why tether dogs are such a strong issue for you?

I will get to this a little later - I have to go to work in a bit so my time is limited. I don't want you to think I'm ignoring you, I just want to have time to explain it as thoroughly as I'd like.

[Saeleofu]

As promised - RE: tether dogs, SDs for children

First, let me start off with why I dislike SDs for children in general. I guess I'd have to rephrase it to say I dislike public access SD for children. In-home SDs (essentially, skilled companion dogs) are great. It all comes down to the ability to independently fully chaperone a dog. Lets' say we have a 5 ear old with a disability. That kid cannot possibly handle a service dog on its own. A child that age, even one without a disability, can barely take care of their own bathroom needs, let alone the needs of an SD. This means that if a dog is going to be going to school, staff will have to take care of the dog. That is not part of their job. Under those conditions, an SD is not a REASONABLE accommodation - if someone needs to be there to care for the dog, they might as well be there to care for the child, and leave the dog at home. Even most highschooolers (even those that aren't disabled) aren't mature enough to handle an SD yet. There are some, and I think that SDs can work in high school, but not any earlier, but even then it's on a case-by-case basis. There's also the issue of dogs needing down time. Kids are active, even in school. A dog does need a lot of sleep. The typical SD for an adult gets to rest throughout the day. That may or may not happen in a typical school, particularly a preschool. Then, there is the issue that SDs are meant to increase someone's independence. A child doesn't need that; once they start to become teenagers, yes, and some will be ready for an SD then. Also I believe that people need time to learn to accomodate for their disability themselves before bringing in an SD. Not all disabilities are disabiling through life, even if it is persistent. For example, my AS wasn't really disabling in elementary school at all, and minimally so in highschool and middle school. If anything I think it helped in the academics department. It was only once I was expected to take care of myself, an apartment, work go to school, etc all at the same time that things began to fall apart. For the last year I have finally been able to take control and try to fix things, knowing know what the problem is - before that I would try suggestion, but they just wouldn't work for me, because they weren't meant for people that have the same problems I have. I still do struggle keeping up with everything, but compared to a year ago I am coping better. Now would be the earliest I would want an SD for myself - before I started college, an SD would not have been justified really even if I had know about my AS. But I have a better grip of what I need an SD to do and how to help myself now after living with that knowledge for a year. A child's needs will change, and yes you can change tasks as needs change, but only to a certain extent. Also, lately most of the "service dogs" I've seen sent to school with kids are no more than pets - puppies, even, at less than a year old. That is not right for anyone, least of all a child. If a dog is not trained as a service dog, it is just another thing to try to manage in public, school, work, etc.

Now...tether dogs. Of course you first have all those issues I just talked about, since they are used on children. On children, yes, nto with children. Tethering is inhumane both for the child and the dog. A parent or other competent adult should be watching the child, not a dog. A dog has the mental capacity of a 3 year old. If you would not let a 3 year old watch your kid, don't let a dog do the job. If your child needs to be tethered to keep it from running off, then he needs to be tethered to a competent adult, not a dog. Again, dogs need rest and time away from an active noisy kid. To ask them to be with a child day in and day out is too much. The other huge problem is that most of these tether dogs aren't trained very well. Some of them are downright aggressive. Kids will get hurt. Dogs will get hurt. I read a story not too long ago about a grown adult that was dragged by her dog in front of a train because she couldn't get her hand out of the leash, and both her and the dog died. Imagine if that was your child. The child couldn't escape even if he wanted to. If a dog breaks training (and all service dogs will break training at one time or another, in some way), say he chases a cat or a squirrel, that kid is going to be dragged. Dogs can pull several times their own weight. I was dragged by a GSD when I was a child; I was "walking" him in that yard, and he took off after something. I was not tied to the dog, I was simply holding the leash; I very well could have let go, and eventually did, but the point is that it didn't occur to me to let go. I did let go soon enough that I was not seriously injured, but had I been tied to that dog I would have been dragged much farther. Also, a child can take off, and the dog is supposed to sit there and take the pulling. That's not exactly pleasant for the dog. The dog could also break training and go with the kid wherever he wants to go. Another problem is that typically these dogs are taught to not ignore any commands from the child, but only from an adult. Well, that means an adult needs to be there anyway, so why not use the adult as the anchor? All a tether dog is is an expensive and potentially dangerous anchor. Some places charge $10000, $15000, $20000 for these dogs. And parents buy them because they are desperate. Those "trainers" are just money-hungry and taking advantage of a parent's desperation. (Also note that when I ask an organization that has trained an autism dog for a child if they'd be willing to train one for me, I get turned down. Why? Because they don't know how to train actual, useful tasks.) And, if the dog is trained to ignore the child, and the child and dog manage to get off somewhere, what then? The child can't tell the dog to go home, and if the dog doesn't want to go home on its own it won't go home. A dog does need to respect its handler, but if it is trained that whaever this person says needs to be ignored, there is no respect there.

I'm sure I have left some things out...if I remember them or if someone points them out, I'll come back and explain some more. That'll do for tonight though.

[Saeleofu]

And if anyone is curious as to what I'd want in a service dog for myself:

The Aspie Life: Service Dog Tasks

[smkie]

Welcome to Chazhound! THat was some very interesting info...thanks for posting!

[Zoom]

Very interesting, thank you!

[ricky]

Welcome to the forum! Awesome article around there and i am sure this information will be helpful to pet lover's.