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Send us an email with the subject: Advice Question or a message to My CRPS Service Dog's Facebook page and we'll answer it! |
February 16, 2019 Q: What do you believe are the most important/most needed tasks to teach a service dog? Like the first 5 that should be taught? A: Largely it depends on the person. What’s important for me might not be what is important for someone else, even if they have the same disability as myself. My lifestyle is unique to me, in that I need the bulk of assistance with household activities and tasks that help prevent further injury since we live far away from any type of human assistance should something happen. Additionally, my condition is not black and white like the conditions for which service dogs are traditionally utilized. My state of pain, strength or weakness, stability or lack thereof, and mental acuity can all change in an instant, and I need a well-rounded, adaptable dog who knows a variety of tasks to help alleviate the worst symptoms and side effects of my condition, but who can also prevent further pain where possible. Anyone with CRPS, the condition I deal with, is likely going to have similar needs in a dog. The 5 most important tasks that my dog does, and that the training for began the earliest are:
Bracing was actually one of the first two tasks my dog learned. At that time, I fell often because my legs were flaring so frequently and my muscles were not very strong. I couldn’t exercise by going for walks because if I fell on a walk, likely no one would see me, since we live in such a rural area. Additionally, I could not use traditional means to help myself rise from the floor, the toilet, or a chair because the torque on my wrist and amount of weight bearing involved was painful enough to make my arms collapse entirely. All of that made bracing the most important task for a dog to know how to do, for me. But bracing couldn’t be started until Robbie was past the 2-year-old mark and got a clean bill of health from hip x-rays (some handlers also do elbow x-rays, we did not). We were able to teach him how to stand properly early on his training, but actual brace work started once he was a little over 2 years old. Bracing & balance assistance tasks need to wait until the dog is matured, since both do take a toll on the dog over time, and a person needing stability assistance can’t get it from a dog who has his own instabilities from muscles not being fully developed, bone structure not fully developed, or disorders that compromise their mobility, such as hip dysplasia. It took a few months to teach a really solid brace, and it continues to be his most important task. We use it daily, and when I do fall on walks or in public, Robbie is better equipped to get me off the floor without increasing my pain than any person. It seems odd, but opening doors is actually a consistent trigger for pain flare ups in my arms. To this day I don’t know if it’s the wrist action, reaching my arm out, pulling something towards me, or all of the above. Whatever it is, it isn’t uncommon for the simple act of opening a door to cause my entire body to crumple to the floor in severe pain. Since we have a variety of doors at home, and needed to account for doors in public, Robbie works doors 4 different ways: tugging a rope, pushing with his paw(s), pushing handicap buttons, and actuating a lever-style handle. By opening doors in our house every day, he prevents flares that could be caused by me opening doors. Pushing the handicap buttons in public prevents a flare that could be caused by my fingers pressing against something (I know, it sounds ridiculous, but nonetheless true). Unfortunately, many buildings don’t have handicap doors, and do seem to have massively heavy doors. When I encounter those, there is no way he can help. I either accept the flare or wait for someone to help me. Around the house, other doors a dog may need to open or close include cabinets, dishwasher, refrigerator, drawers, and more. I recommend Balance Assist training for anyone who needs it, with a caveat.
Retrieve is a task that we started teaching early, gave up, tried again, gave up, tried again, had a breakthrough, and now use daily. I call retrieve an umbrella task, because it covers so many other smaller tasks and having a dog who is willing to put things in their mouth reaches into so many other tasks. A need for retrievals comes from various activities being difficult to impossible for you to perform yourself, including but not limited to: reaching certain items because you’re confined to a wheelchair, reaching your arms out to get items, bending over to pick up dropped items increases your fall risk or causes a spike in head flares, performing repetitive arm motions, and needing something like medication from another room. If need assistance doing a chore like laundry, you’ll need a solid retrieve from start to finish, because the dog needs to be able to get clothes out of one place, move to a new basket, pull the basket into the laundry room (they have to be willing to put a rope in their mouth and pull), load the washer & dryer, and even put clothes away. That is a lot of retrieve work! Robbie’s retrieve training was discouraging because he didn’t have a natural desire to hold items in his mouth, or even play fetch. We had to start from scratch, our trainer forced a method that wasn’t right for us, and honestly, he didn’t see a point to it. It wasn’t until our 2nd year that he began to see the point of it and wanted to do it, but on his terms. In our 3rd year, he watched me play fetch consistently with another dog, and suddenly he understood. For the first time I was able to play outdoor fetch with him, and he was so happy about it. From there, it’s been slow but he’s gotten it and found a drive to do it. Laundry is a chore we do together at least 2x a week, and before his assistance, doing laundry would easily leave me bed ridden form pain and fatigue. With his help, my pain and energy levels stay manageable, which leaves me able to do more activities in a day. Finding help is crucial task that seems weird because at first you want to say that assisting the handler is what the dog’s job is, but there are times when the dog's assistance isn’t enough or isn’t the right kind of help. We have two forms of finding people. It is possible to train a dog to find anyone to help their handler, we chose to train for one specific person, my husband. This task splits off into two different tasks for us. In one, Robbie stays with me, but uses his nose to sniff out my husband in a store and guide me to him. This helps mitigate my disability because often in stores I experience brain fog and sensory overload episodes. Both of those prevent from being able to find my husband if we get separated, and often sensory overload episodes, if severe enough, can cause me to pass out or get very disoriented, both scenarios in which I would be safer if with my husband. The other form is used most often at home, should I fall or experience a severe pain spike and be able to call out or walk, I need Robbie to leave me, find my husband, alert him, and bring him back. There are times when the best way a dog can help is to get a human to help their disabled handler. The Find task is definitely important for that purpose. Robbie knows about 12 tasks, but these are the most important for managing my disability. Someone else may have different needs and therefore different tasks that are most important. When you’re trying to figure out what tasks might be the most important for you, making a list of activities that are difficult, impossible, or in the case of CRPS, have severe consequences (like being bed ridden from pain and fatigue), can help you figure out what tasks are the most important to focus on teaching your service dog first, as well as what basic foundations that will be needed for learning those tasks.
For more inspiration on the wide possibilities of tasks, check out this article about different tasks various types of service dogs can learn to perform.
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