Knightley's assistance dog permit, public transport, strides towards loose leash

9 months 1 week 4 days old

Working on sit stays outside. Inside these things are easy - outside

Well FINALLY today, after about 11 sporadic months of investigation, calls to different government departments, agencies, various call centres and more I finally hit upon the right person for the question. I had been trying to find out how to get a public access permit for Knightley here in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT, a region somewhat like a state that surrounds Canberra, the capital city of Australia), which is not exactly organised when it comes to assistance dogs. The only mention on the internet of assistance dog access in the ACT is to mention that to get no holds barred public access here your dog must have a permit. So this time I hit upon the right person after like five call transfers and half an hour on hold. All I need to do is when Knightley is fully trained is completely document his training (videos would be helpful apparently), get signatures from any trainers who may have helped me, and get a letter from my doctor saying that I would benefit from an assistance dog. Then I send it into Domestic Animal Services and they assess my training, and they hopefully give me the permit.

My beautiful Knightley, definitely growing up with a very
male Golden Retriever profile. You can see his yellow ACT
tags on his collar. He will get special assistance dog tags if
given the permit.

I will do it properly as if with a program, and keep a full training journal, as well as do the videos. I won't start keeping the journals for maybe another two months, until he is 11 months old. As there is no official format for this application, I will let both IAADP (International Association of Assistance Dog Partners) and ADI (Assistance Dogs International) be my guide, in terms of training standard and training amount. Both IAADP and ADI recommend a minimum period of six months of training, and I can see Knightley being mature enough at 17 months, so I shall start officially training in two or so months, and Knightley's status in my header will change from "Puppyhood" to "In Training". In my mind he will start being a Assistance Dog in Training then. In North America, where assistance dogs are called service dogs, they called them Service Dogs in Training, but you often see the acronym SDiT. You don't actually see ADiT for some reason. Anyway, back to the topic at hand.... the recommended number of training hours overall is 120, of which 30 hours should be devoted to public outings. Theoretically you can count hours before the six months starts, but I will only be counting those after then. Knightley and I have a lot of work to do.

My good boy. Going well for his age but still lots to learn.

Looking at the IAADP website, the "Manners" section of assistance dog minimum training standards for public access is currently our main concern. Obviously Knightley's task training is the more important part of his training for his job, but I already have a good start on the task training, and the harder tasks can even come after Knightley has got his public access. Which is why all the public access training is so important, and not at all insignificant in its own right. Some of it is improving already, and some of it is not a problem.... but other things aren't so good. Here are the required manners in full, from here, with my comment in red.

Manners: a dog must acquire proper social behavior skills. It includes at a minimum:

A slow(!) recall back to me. Knightley tends to be a fairly steady
dog and I don't mind that, so long as his reactions to my cues are
instant. I would like a bit more dash, but that just aint my boy.
In addition to manners and task training, assistance dogs should
know basic obedience: sit, down, recall, heel, and stay.

• No aggressive behavior toward people or other animals - no biting, snapping, snarling, growling or lunging and barking at them when working off your property. (easy)
• No soliciting food or petting from other people while on duty. (no soliciting food fairly easy, but when people reach for Knightley's head, he leans towards them for pats.... so work to be done there)
• No sniffing merchandise or people or intruding into another dog’s space while on duty. (he occasionally sniffs, and he's quite hopeless around other dogs, LOTS of work there.)
• Socialise to tolerate strange sights, sounds, odors etc. in a wide variety of public settings. (easy, done this since a young age, will continue to expose him to new situations)
• Ignores food on the floor or dropped in the dog’s vicinity while working outside the home. (not good at this! he will leave the food on cue, but will not ignore on default, heaps of work here)
• Works calmly on leash. No unruly behavior or unnecessary vocalizations in public settings. (pretty good, some leash work, not unruly but barked on two occasions in public before, need to make him ok with hubby walking out of sight)
• No urinating or defecating in public unless given a specific command or signal to toilet in an appropriate place. (very good with first command, not quite as prompt with other, one time he had an upset stomach in public and whined and looked at me constantly until I got the message and took him outside, is a good boy!)

A life with this beautiful creature by your side, who would say no?
I know this is not considered a task, and you are not allowed to
have a dog with you for this reason, but Knightley makes me feel
so much more -able-, just having him with me when I am out. He
takes the dis out of dis-ability just by boosting my confidence.
Yep, I love my dog quite a lot. If he were to fail now as an
assistance dog I would be absolutely beyond consolation.,

So, I have something real and tangible to aim for now, which is great because my training has become a little fuzzy of late. I will focus on training that would be part of a PAT (Public Access Test) if Knightley was going to take one. I really like these examples from IAADPs PAT (taken once again from here).

 ( 1 ) safely cross a parking lot, (yes) halt for traffic, (yes) and ignore distractions; (sometimes)
( 2 ) heel through narrow aisles; (fairly well)
( 3 ) hold a Sit-Stay when a shopping cart passes by (yes) or when a person stops to chat and pets the dog; (sometimes flops down for a tummy rub)
(4 ) hold a Down Stay when a child approaches and briefly pets the dog; (yes but sometimes rolls over onto back)
( 5 ) hold a Sit Stay when someone drops food on the floor; (yes) hold a Down Stay when someone sets a plate of food on the floor within 18" of the dog, then removes it a minute later. [the handler may say “Leave It” to help the dog resist the temptation.] (if I can say leave it, yes, if not...)
( 6 ) remain calm if someone else holds the leash while the handler moves 20 ft. away; (yes)
( 7 ) remain calm while another dog passes within 6 ft. of the team during the test. This can occur in a parking lot or store. Alternatively, you could arrange for a neighbor with a pet dog to stroll past your residence while you load your dog into a vehicle at the beginning of the test. (NO!)

So I think I'll do some concentrating on PAT type training for a bit, to get him ready for more public access outings in a couple of months time. Our public outings have been mainly only to our nearby shops, which I have permission for. Unfortunately, I have no rights of public access until he is fully trained, so wherever I take him I must get permission first but I have found businesses to be very accommodating so far. I have taken him very briefly to our big shopping mall, to an office supply store, and we went to that factory outlet mall the other day as well (where I had my first access challenge). That's about it so far though, apart from poking our heads into my work the other day for about 2 minutes so he could get a handle on the floor.

Anyway, that is enough talk of Knightley's permit and his training towards it. Recently we have finally made some strides towards a reasonable loose leash, especially when Knightley is 'working' in his vest. It does partially dissolve under stress, but it is a good start. I have found it very hard to click and treat whilst outside while holding a leash and a crutch, so it has taken me much longer to train than I had wanted. Looking back I would have done it differently from when he was even a baby puppy. When he was a baby I would stop if he pulled, but I was happy enough to have him out of heel position. Now I realise stopping still gives the dog quite a bit of satisfaction, you really must BACK UP as it swings the dog's head away from whatever it wants to get to. If you just stop, it can stare and continue to pull to try to get to the thing it wants. Not good. Also being simply happy to have him not pulling, but not have him in heel position has created a dog who is much harder to now GET in heel position lol. I should have insisted on it from the beginning. There are SO many things I will do differently with my next dog. Poor Knightley gets to be on the receiving end of all my mistakes!

I had some unfortunate news yesterday. Our public transport service (buses) won't allow Knightley to ride until he is fully trained, not even for training purposes. I've been talking to a guy from there for a few days, as I wanted to get him on a bus before he was much older just to get him used to the motion, and lying under my legs etc. The younger the better really - once passed six months that is. But they won't allow him on there until he has his permit, which is completely daft because that means he will theoretically be fully trained and won't have been on a bus. I then had a brain wave and called the guy back and asked if I could take him on a bus while it was in the bus depot. It would allow us to practice getting on and sitting down in various different seats, and would also show the permit people that I had taken my training seriously. Still, I was mighty annoyed. How stupid that a dog has to be fully trained before it can touch a bus, but to be fully trained it should really have experience ON the bus! The world is a silly place.

On that note I shall leave you all.

A trip to the dog park, a little training, slowly getting better

5 months 3 weeks 6 days old

Well I'm still not well, but I am feeling a little better I think. I think I have been pushing myself a bit overall, and last Thursday/Friday was just the final straw, trying to balance everything. The pile has finally come falling down. Unfortunately the timing is pretty bad! I have very definite commitments at the Arts Centre I volunteer at this week, and they aren't something that can be put off. Nevermind, I will just try to minimise the hours and rest as much as I can.

The hubby and I did manage to take Mr Knightley to the dog park again for some fun and exercise, since he isn't getting his normal walks at the moment. He had a really great time, solid socialisation with both people and dogs, and is starting to develop some manners around adult dogs - one of the main reasons we are taking him there. He's learning that if he bugs and bugs adult dogs to play, they may just turn around and tell him off. Twice when we've been there now there has been a guy with two muzzled rottweilers, and the first time he bothered one of them a bit, it started to lash out at Knightley. I was certainly glad it was muzzled, although it did back off quickly. The next time he visited he stayed clear though - there was no bothering. He still needs to learn to be nice to the little dogs as well as the big dogs, although he seems to have stopped both running and jumping over the little dogs! There were two huge mastiffs, as well as an alaskan malamute this last time, and he was extreeemely polite to them, it was quite amusing to watch.

I do have to bite my tongue at the dog park though. There are people there who in my opinion are doing absolutely the WRONG thing to manage behavioural problems with their dogs..... but who am I to offer advice? Especially as from what they can see I am just the normal pet owner. I have felt like asking "and is that technique visibly improving matters?" several times though. Must control myself, although if I see those two terrified Italian Greyhounds being made to come to the park once again it will be very hard........ their owner has obviously received advice from these trainers/dog walkers who come to the park that repeated visits will cure them of their issues.... but IMO it will make them worse. Wish I could say something.... I know exactly what I would do to help the poor creatures (one of which tried to bite Knightley it was so terrified of him) but it isn't right to butt in if actual dog 'professionals' are helping her.

Knightley today on his new bed doing 'on your mat!' training.
He's such a good boy these days with his training, so quick
and willing to please. I am very proud of him!

I have officially crossed off two behaviours on my Sue Ailsby's Training Levels Level 2 'to do' list and we're working on a third. The first is a behaviour where you have a jump and a mat next to each other and using cues you ask for your dog to either jump over the jump or lay on the mat and actually get the one you asked for consistently - testing cue recognition. Knightley had no problems with that, and we have been continuing to work on getting him used to other mats, even things like cotton shopping bags.

The second behaviour to tick off is recall. For a while I have been taking Knightley out the front to do his business, which I started doing to lower his excitement levels every time he went outside the house. It has worked extremely well - going outside is now matter of fact for him and I think it has helped our loose leash training, and also helped him take treats outside. At first he wouldn't eat food outside at all because he was completely over threshold, but now he is happy to eat his dry kibble, partly thanks to taking him out so often. However, I've been feeling rotten the last couple of days obviously, so have just been letting him out the back, giving him his cue to go as he goes past me, which works well. I give him a couple of minutes, then call him back in. His response to the call in is pretty impressive, considering he can be as much as 40 metres away, out of sight around the other side of the house. Sometimes I have to call a couple of times, but he certainly does come. So considering Level 2 only asks for a 12m (40 feet) recall we are definitely able to tick that one off. We've also been doing some hide and seek at a distance of about 20m (66 feet), and he's been loving that... and the hide and seek was also on the Levels too. So recall is done too!

We did some work on the 6m (20 feet) down stay, which is further than I have been usually doing down stays, but I am taking it up slowly to the desired 1 minute. At the moment we are at 20 seconds, which isn't bad. He didn't once break his stay today, so that is great. I want him to think that stay is never to be broken. If your dog is breaking stays often then you are doing stays that are either too long, with too many distractions, or too far from you. Take it slowly, and whenever you make something harder, re-teach the whole behaviour. We haven't done much stay work outside, so when we finally do go outside I will be starting from 1 second standing right next to him - without a cue. Only once he has grasped what I want will I add the cue again and then start making it harder - slowly. If you can set your dog up for success in his training - like me taking his stay training slowly so he doesn't break a stay - then he is much more likely to succeed in the end. If I had jumped up to 10 seconds straight away, then he would have likely broken, and then I would have been fighting the idea that he can break a stay if he wants for much much longer.

It is very important with clicker training - and probably all dog training - to always set your dog up for success by keeping it easy at the beginning. You can increase the difficulty of a behaviour once your dog understands later. Make it as easy as possible for you dog to succeed in training every new behaviour. This is such an important thing to remember, as well as behaviour re-teaching - which I sometimes forget about too and just expect Knightley to do a 1 minute wait outside because he can do it inside even though he has never done it outside. Then I get annoyed when he doesn't do it..... and then DOH! it hits me that I needed to take a few minutes to explain it again. Unfortunately that little mistake will put Knightley backwards. So make sure you re-teach your behaviours whenever you change anything like difficulty, distance, duration, place, surface or distractions.

Anyway, hopefully the posts will be a little more frequent once again now. I swear my body picks the worst times to collapse in a heap! Over and out from me.

A trip to the dog park, a tired puppy

Knightley soon after we came into the
enclosure. He was so excited to see that
many dogs to talk to, he was literally
jumping over the small ones. The red and
white cocker is the one that didn't want to
play with him!

5 months 2 weeks 3 days old

Well, today we went to the dog park for the second time. However, the first time we went was timed carefully on a weekday so that there would be next to no one there (only two other dogs!) so as to introduce him to it, and to adult dogs a bit. Today's visit was on a Saturday, although we tried to go at a time when it wouldn't be too chaotic. Still, there were probably about 15-18 dogs at one time. Knightley was a very happy boy, didn't know whether to talk to the dogs or the people!

Visiting dog parks can be controversial for assistance dog prospects, and even active assistance dogs. This is because one traumatic incident (a fight, I mean) can wash out a dog from training or active duty. It can sap their confidence and lead to problems with other dogs, even with people. However, I have been to this dog park before with a friend and it has always been a very positive experience. Knightley is amazingly confident and bounces back in the face of any slight scare (if he went into a fear period or something of the like, naturally we would completely avoid the place). Most of all however, I think the gains in this situation are worth the very small risk taking into account what I just said:

• We don't really know any dogs of our friends, so it's not like we have better prospects for Knightley to associate with. He needs the socialisation.
• Knightley really needs to learn some dog manners. He's pretty rude sometimes, just a bundle of puppy insistence and energy. Adult dogs will teach him some.
• It is fantastic for draining some of his rather boundless energy! 
• It is great exercise for him, he runs around like a mad thing. 
• We do a lot of training, it is important he has a release where I have little expectations.

So despite the small risk, I think it important we continue semi-regular visits there. Thankfully it is very close, so we are lucky to have such a great dog park so close to us.

As soon as we got into the main park section, Knightley started trying to play with two cocker spaniels (photo above). One of them was happy to play, despite its small size, but the other one was very stand offish. Knightley had obviously just turned off his brain though and wasn't reading dog. I was happy to see a dog telling him 'no, I don't want to play with you, you rude puppy' by a quick snarl and lunge, but the owner was quite annoyed with her dog. I did tell her several times that I didn't mind at all, and that is why we were there mostly, to help Knightley learn the language of 'dog' better. The cocker would have sent several messages already to say 'stay away I am not interested in playing', but Knightley ignored it repeatedly. It took about three snarls before Knightley started leaving the cocker alone, although you could tell he soooo wanted to play with him - forbidden fruit I suppose!

Knightley running around, as happy as can
be. He got rolled several times in all that
dust by a big strong Blue Heeler whilst they
were chasing each other and probably
 needs a bath still. It's just lucky he's
kind of dust coloured!

We practiced some recalls while we were there, using up some of his upset tummy boiled chicken food every time he came in. He did pretty well. I would call his name and only use the word 'come' when he was actually moving towards us. The amusing thing is he responded when other people called their dogs in! Oh well, more attention and exercise for him I suppose. I did wonder when I was getting ready whether the other dogs would dance attendance upon me for having chicken and some kibble in my treat pouch, but it seems all the dogs were too busy smelling other things, except for one very 'nosy' chocolate lab, who is in the photo on the right with Knightley. He just looked at me with a doggy grin, and a few times reached out with his nose towards my treat pouch. Oh, he sure knew what was going on.

By the time we left Knightley's gallop and trot had turned into a slow walk, and he was completely done for. We had another couple of small walks later in the day to practice loose leash while he was nicely tired - a great way to do it!

We went via our local shops whilst on our walk, my husband was with me that time, so while he went inside the shops, Knightley and I stayed outside practicing some basic commands, including 'up' (paws up on a high surface, or if possible, whole dog up!) which isn't a Training Levels behaviour, 'relax' which was great to do with distractions, and his normal sit, down, stand, touch, shake, hi-five, heel etc. He did very nicely. He got rather excited when meeting a young child, probably less than two years old even. We need to work on kid zen, as they do get him excited as a rule, and I don't want him jumping up on a young kid and knocking them over. I plan to institute a new meeting people plan, which we could hopefully have him do for young kids too - but more about that in the future.

Anyway, it was a great day for the pup. He was completely and thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day. I have an interesting non edible treat lined up for him tomorrow which arrived in the mail today. I bought it online as a get well present for him... so we'll see what he thinks....