Assistance/Service Dog Training - Public Access Training
Reading your dog’s body language
Focus execises
Calming Signals vs. Stress vs Appeasment Sign
Understanding Personality Traits/Socialization
De-sensitization techniques
De-stressing techniques
Inadvertent Training
Equipment allowed, grooming and handling of the dog
Benefits of Animal Assisted Therapy Activities/Therapy/Interventions
Proper Person to Person Interactions
Training your dog to assist you in daily life. This will include public manners and skills
Cost : $75.00/hour minimum 6 sessions Contract will be required.Class Description
Therapy Dog Preparation Classes
Prerequisites:
Participating dogs must be able to walk on a loose lead in a soft collar and be friendly, people-oriented, enjoy petting, be tolerant of strange sounds, smells and unusual human behavior and be able to remain calm and focused in a distracting environment.
Basic manners and obedience. All training will be done on soft collars and 6 foot leads. Bring your dog's favorite high value treats. If you dog's prefered reward is a toy, bring it and a high value treat. Rewarding by "tugging" is not appropriate for public place while doing therapy dog work, but we'll figure what will work for your own dog. Class includes AKC CGC Evaluation.
***Therapy dogs are not legally defined by federal law, but some states have laws defining therapy animals. They provide people with contact to animals, but are not limited to working with people who have disabilities. They are usually the personal pets of their handlers, and work with their handlers to provide services to others. Federal laws have no provisions for people to be accompanied by therapy dogs in places of public accommodation that have "no pets" policies. Therapy dogs usually are not service animals. Therapy dogs may also work with healthcare professional in their practices,
"Ideal" therapy dogs are friendly, greet people politely, enjoy being petted, have good obedience skills, remain calm in unusual environments, are unworried by unpredictable people and tolerate being thoroughly groomed frequently. A great therapy dog will illicit interactions with a human.
Therapy Dog Assessments:
Assessment of your dog before taking a class or taking an evaluation.
Assessment includes skills, temperment, socializaton, public manner skills. A written assessment will be provided.
Cost : $25.00/ 1/2 hr session
What makes a good Therapy Dog*** Candidate?
Learn and practice the canine and human skills needed to meet the requirements to become a therapy dog team. Exercises are based on those used by all of the various therapy dog programs. This class will also discuss the practical issues involved with being a therapy team.
Skills taught can be used even if you choose not to take the evaluation and become a therapy team.
Discussions/Skills Taught
Dogs can make people smile, forget the bad, remember the good, bridge a gap between people, encourage a child/adult to want to walk again, make impending death easier and so much more. A social worker or other health care professional can incorporate a canine into their practice in many ways. A non-professional can offer visits with a dog that brightens someone's day. Properly trained dogs and humans have so many gifts to give to humanity.
Characteristics incompatible with being a therapy dog:
Shy, afraid of some kinds of people, sound/noise sensitive, sensitive to hard or clumsy touching, don't like people, don't like being groomed or greets people too enthusiastically - cannot keep feet on the floor or tongue in the mouth when greeting, is very stimulated by new environments, cannot follow basic obedience commands when stimulated or possessive of people, objects or environment, ever trained to use mouth for bite-work, aggressive to any person or other dog. Proper training can help you dog develop with many of this characteristics.
Preliminary Skills and/or Aptitude Assessment is available.
6 classes, 1 1/2 hour each
Homework is required
Recommended Reading List
1 class will be held in a public venue
CGC (Canine Good Citizen Evaluation) is included
Cost $180.00 ** price depends on venue where the class is held and the cost of rent.