In my one year anniversary post about me & Robbie's journey so far, I covered a few of my expectations about training and raising a service dog versus the reality of how things turned out. In this post, I want to dedicate the entire post to expectations and realities. There are always new service dog handlers starting out, and hopefully this post will answer a lot of questions for people. When I Started OutWhen I first started thinking about adopting a dog to train to be my service dog, I had a lot of expectations and ideas already established in my mind about how things were going to be. My trainer tried to talked me out of some of these expectations, but in the back of my mind, I was like, “Yeah, right, you’re just over-exaggerating the amount of work this will take.” He was not; if anything, he downplayed it. Those first few months of training Robbie were extremely intense, tiring, disheartening at times, encouraging, exciting, and stressful all rolled into one. I don’t regret any of it, because Robbie is shaping out to be an amazing dog, but I wanted to write a blog post geared directly towards what I think a lot of peoples' misconceptions about what it’s like to train your own service dog are and give them an idea of the reality behind those expectations. I am in no way trying to scare people off from training their own service dog, but there are some things that don’t get said in typical service dog articles or are secrets amongst current handlers. Training your own service dog is a lot of work, but in the end it does pay out. I can’t imagine life without Robbie. He helps me so much everyday, and he is still in the process of learning all of his tasks. The joy of training him, the bond that we have, his ability to help me be more independent, and the excitement I get when he figures out a command for the first time and is so proud of himself - that’s what makes all of this worth it. If you have a disability that could benefit from having a service dog, go for it. Research programs first, but if you think owner-training is right for you, don’t be afraid to give it a shot. Just be sure to keep some of these tips in mind when you start out! Expectations vs Reality
Closing RemarksI'm sure there's more points that I could cover, but these were our biggest expectations and slaps of realities that we got dealt. I hope our experiences can prove helpful for others! It can get stressful at times, but when that happens, just take a deep breath, a step back, and remember that you can do this.
1 Comment
Oriana
10/29/2019 10:47:40 am
I'm trying to find solutions to my anxiety without upping my meds to zombie levels and i want to know the realities of training and owning a service dog. This was really helpful. Thank you.
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My Name is Sally...I have a condition called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. This blog is about my journey training Robbie, a dog who helped me regain independence, confidence, and achieve the impossible in the face of my disability. It continues on with the training of Austin, Robbie's successor. Check Out... - "More than a Dog" was published on a site called The Mighty Categories
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