Monthly Archives: October 2013

Training: Command Chain

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Seva is 19 months old now. Her graduation is going to come up sooner than we think (between 2 and 2 1/2 years). At this point, she’s learned most of the skills she needs to be a service dog. The focus now is on consistency, duration, reducing food rewards, and linking commands into chains so that she can do more complex things. Oh, and minding her manners in public. That’s going to be tough!

We’ve been working on new skills, Rise–standing up on a wall–and Put–dropping an object into a bin, instead of Giving it to me. These are tough skills for a puppy. Recent additions to our homework have been to put together commands in a chain.

Now, Seva can do all sorts of command chains, like Get It, Bring, Give. Get Dressed, Rest Your Head. Rise, Snuggle. Those command chains are natural and intuitive. I didn’t think she was ready for a chain with Rise or Put in it, until Sunday.

I had her Rise (we practice with a board to save our walls), and thought, “What the heck.” I grabbed her light switch and gave the next command in the chain: Light. She did it! Camera time:

 

Rise-Light

 

And if she could do Rise-Light, why not Rise-Put? I tried. She succeeded. I grabbed my phone again. It was propped up on the counter, so forgive the framing. You’ll see in the second go that Seva tries to quit halfway. She puts her chin on her crate like, “Come on, Mom. That’s good enough.” Typical teenager!

 

Get It-Rise-Put

 

Method Training

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Seva will go to someone with a physical disability. As we get into more advanced skills, I have to ask more of her and do less myself. This means, to help with Seva’s training, I have to imagine I have a disability. Like method acting, I think of this as method training.

I’ll give some examples.

A lot of graduates (that’s what Helping Paws calls the people who receive the dogs) don’t have very good manual dexterity. It’s hard to grasp and hold objects in their hands. So, if I’m pretending I don’t have good manual dexterity, when Seva retrieves an object and doesn’t quite get it in my hands, I let it fall and ask her to retrieve it again. Right now, she is learning to hold something in her mouth without chewing or dropping it while I pretend I can’t quite get hold of it and touch her muzzle before finally taking the object.

Some graduates are partially paralyzed. If I drop my keys between my feet, I pretend my feet are paralyzed and let Seva figure out how to get the keys without any help from me.

Some graduates are ambulatory, but need support. When we train on a staircase, I tell Seva to “Step,” and she places her front paws up (or down) one step, then waits while I use her as a brace to bring myself up (or down) that step. I don’t really need her for support, but I put some weight on her so she knows what it feels like to be used as a brace.

 

Me & Seva

Me & Seva

 

We use wheelchairs at the training center so the dogs get used to walking beside them. One day, we put tennis balls behind our backs. We had to hold the balls in place, which meant we couldn’t lean forward to hold out a hand to our dogs. They had to get each item they retrieved in our hands, even if our knees or the chair’s wheels were in the way.

The dog packs have a belly strap that buckles. Sometimes, I sit in a chair and make her bring me her pack. Then I hold it out and Seva has to walk through the chest strap without any help (like making the opening wider). Then she has to rise onto my lap so the buckle is easier for me to reach. When she gets dressed this way, I’m teaching her to adapt to my needs, instead of doing it the same way every time and establishing a pattern of how much—or how little—she has to do to get dressed.

As I train Seva and work through many of the ways her help could be needed, I’m reminded how fortunate I am to be able to take my mobility for granted.

Helping Paws Graduation

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Friday night was the Helping Paws Graduation. There were five graduate teams (person + dog). Scott was the event photographer and I assisted him while Seva waited, not so patiently, off to the side. It was hard for the little bear to be leashed to a table while people and dogs milled about right in front of her. Still, the photographer and his assistant had work to do and she did actually survive not being the center of attention for a while.

Increased independence, companionship, and social visibility are major benefits of having a service dog. It was wonderful to see dogs that have been placed and to hear from the graduates how the dogs have already made their lives better. One of them is the first Helping Paws dog to be placed with a veteran as a PTSD dog. Maybe you’ve seen Carl and Jed in the news. Carl has said that Jed is helping him reconnect with his family.

Seva is about a year away from graduation. Yes, I will be sad to give her up. Of course, but if you see the dogs with their graduates and hear how a dog has changed someone’s life, you’ll understand why Seva is a Wonder Dog.

 

2013 Helping Paws Graduates

2013 Helping Paws Graduates