Sharing this due to its importance and relevance from an actual person who relies on a service dog.... An open letter to Mr. De Oliveira, from That concerned, Anonymous SD partner. A few days ago, I was stunned when you offered a raffle for a Service Dog. You see, I have been a follower of your page for some time, looking at the nice pictures of dogs and puppies running through the woods and laying cozily on your furniture. I had paid no mind to the endless strings of posts made by you about haters because I never saw any hate happening on your page and as we do not know each other, it seemed not to matter. That is until I found the page you so often accused and sat down for a good two days with a cup of tea, to read and as I read, to ask questions. Now, I cant stop you from breeding your dogs, or training dogs, or not vaccinating your dogs, or any other thing you might do with your pack which are not agreeable to me, personally. I cant stop you from offering Service animals either. But Id like to tell you, through this letter, if you are so kind to read it, that you are not ready. You are not ready. I understand, that you believe you have some natural ability and affinity to train dogs, and that may be true, I dont know. I do not consider that I can judge you on this. But there is so much more that goes into training a service dog, Mr. De Oliveira, that you cannot begin to comprehend unless you have mentored under an experienced trainer for a reputable organization who works closely with the disabled and observes the standards established by the ADI and tests their dogs rigurously and unbiasedly for their skills and temperament. They do this for a reason. You may say Why?, I will tell you, these are not skills you learn on your own, they are not gained through intuition; these are years of study under a TRUE professional, because its not just about the dog, its about the human on the other end of the harness or leash. You are young, and you will make mistakes. A Service Dog is not somewhere you want to make a mistake. A mistake could cost a person their life, their freedom, their trust on their animal and the priviledges of thousands of people who need these dogs in their life. As Im sitting here typing this today, at my feet sits Thor. Thor is a golden who was VP rated as a puppy, earned his puppy STAR, CGC, passed three obedience certifications with flying colors and even passed for his TD certification. Papers may not matter to you, you may say they are of little importance, but to us, they sum the long months of training and testing done by several people on his road from goofy puppy, to candidate, to SDiT. They are the embodiment of blood, sweat, tears, and of pride. Thor loves me (he loves everyone, even squirrels) and hes a great dog; he can do things most perfect family companion dogs cannot do. But, even through all his accomplishments and under the best efforts of his trainers, Thor, who is now ten years old, washed out as a service dog a little before his second birthday. Not all dogs are cut out to be a service animal and when he failed, we understood; he is our beloved family pet, a loving half of a therapy dog team, and still has had a fulfilling life as a dog with titled accomplishments in other areas. His post has since been filled by my current service dog, who took as much effort and resources to train as Thor did and for whom we held our breath on several occassions thinking he would not make it. It is that difficult. This dog is not just a dog. He is trained to do all the things I find do not come to me with ease and he does them without hesistation, almost as he were an extra set of body parts custom fit just for me. Thats the mantle you take on when you announce to the world you can now train Service Dogs. Its not walking politely as a group through the streets, or doing a down stay as curious onlookers take pictures, but being the eyes, ears, cane, arms... the aide of their human partner. He remains calm when I cannot and stands watch at my side like a warm, faithful monitor, always attentive to needs, excercising his training wether he is wearing a collar, vest, three pound harness saddled across his shoulders or nothing at all. And he does this with a wag of his tail and true joy and excitement to work. Mr. Deoliveira, can you do this? Can you truly say you are ready to train a dog for two years or more, mold his training to fit the needs of their human (each one very unique), decide when to pass, when to wash out (and start over again with another puppy if they do), pick, evaluate and have your puppies evaluated by an unbiased party, test and clear all health issues known to their breed by an outside source such as OFA or PennHip to guarantee this dog wont crumble in health when their partner needs them, take time out of your now very busy homesteading-breeding-training schedule to take these puppy candidates and sdit dogs to all manners of public places, (on buses, trains, airplanes, stadiums, hospitals, restaurants, hotels, schools, malls) for several hours each week, to meet all manners of people (from children to elderly, on bikes, wheelchairs, motorcycles, with hats, costumes, bags, carts...) and stop to do CGC, TD and PACT on each and every dog until they meet the highest standard, knowing that about two thirds or more of your puppies will fail and that you WILL have to wash them out and begin again with a different candidate? Have you studied the different kinds of service animals, talked to disabled with dogs, without dogs, done research or mentoring with an organization who excells in this type of training before declaring yourself knowledgeable enough? Not every dog is fit for the responsibility of work. Not every person is fit for the taxing, demanding job of raising and training a dog to be a medical device or aide. I do not believe you have, that is my personal opinion and it may not matter to you, but knowing that you do not health clear your dogs through a specialized program or that you have not been proffesionally schooled for this type of training may matter to the disabled people who hope to acquire a dog. Tidy up your kennel operation first. Each and every one of the mating pairs that you have or plan to have, who will produce service candidate puppies needs to have their hips, elbows, cardiac (by a cardiologist, not a vet), DM, eyes and all other congenital diseases cleared before you breed them. You will have to put these results through a database that grades in an unbiased, proffessional manner, not your private records. Service is a demanding job for a dog. And while you are doing that, please mentor under an experienced trainer who can give you on hands experience with this type of dog because you wont be training just dogs, you are fine tuning the workings of a being who provides specialized medical assistance. You have a lovely pack Mr. Deoliveira and you may have trained them in their basic pet manners, but you are not ready. Remember, its not just about the dog, its about the human on the other end of the harness or leash. This is a huge undertaking, even for the experienced. I hope you have read, and if you have, I thank you for your time. Sadly as I am now blocked from your group for asking an innocent question about training, this seems like the only way to reach out to you. I sincerely hope and implore you to reconsider. My thanks, That concerned Anonymous SD partner.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 02:07:28 +0000
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