Confessions of a service dog trainer

Being a service dog trainer as well as a service dog partner has its pros and cons. There are lots of pros-such as being able to custom train your own dog or having a jump start on problem solving. However, one con I am finding out is that because I know I can fix a training problem, I am more likely to let it develop. I'm lazy so I say "oh well, when it gets bad, I'll just train him back." I am also adjusting to a new dog with a very different personality than Jessie and what would work with Jessie does not necessarily work with Morey.

Here's the best example...
We have automatic doors at my office. Morey loves to push them and they are located high enough on the wall that he has to do an "up" with his paws on the wall in order to push it. I have gotten in the habit of saying "touch" for the command-which means he should touch it with his nose, but also implies that he needs to do an "up" to be able to do the "touch". However, as Morey jumps up he hits it with his paws and so the touch is really unnecessary. So, I've been letting him get away with ignoring the "touch" command. Not a problem, because the end result of the door opening still happens.

Or it did, until the day when I said "touch" and Morey launched himself at the wall and then turned and looked at me like "I did it!" (He gets very enthusiastic about this command!) Except he hadn't even touched the button and so the door didn't open. But, for a few weeks I had been accepting this as the behavior and so he had lost the connection that touching the button was actually the behavior I was looking for and was only focused on jumping up on the wall.

Realizing my mistake, I have gone back and we are re-training this. He is now cued to do an "up" and then a "touch", being clicked only when he actually touches the button with his nose. Although his enthusiastic spring-loaded launching is cute, it is not a controlled behavior and so I am also building that criteria back in. Morey responds well and after 4 sessions he is already back on track with the original expectations. I know I need to be diligent about keeping my standards high and not allowing behaviors to deteriorate.

Looking back on my time as the Director of Client Services for ICAN, I am reminded of 2 lessons I frequently impressed on clients and now need to remind myself: 1) Deteriorating behavior is a slippery slope-set your standards and expect the dog to keep them and 2) If you change the meaning of a cue or behavior that's fine-just make sure it is changing into something you want and not end up with something the dog designed. I guess I just taught myself a refresher class!