Emotional support "tasks"

[Kirsten]

Comments, anyone?

[OneOfManySouls]

I do believe that things like "hug", "kiss", "cuddle", and "lap" are cute pet tricks that are good for emotional support animals. I honestly don't see how they could even be considered a task because /any/ dog can be taught them.

As for the "making you get out of the house to walk them", that's a given. That's a part of dog ownership in general.

And I honestly don't see how "improving social interaction" could be considered a task of any sort. How is a dog supposed to do that?

Providing a "focus" is a good thing for a SD task provided it goes along with something else.

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong

[Ilghaus]

I am of the feeling that kiss, etc. is what a pet dog does by virture of being a dog.  If the dog does these things on command or allows more then what most pet dogs will willingly put up with then it crosses over into a dog that gives emotional support. If the person has a real ongoing need for the higher level of support then the dog becomes an Emotional Support Animal/Dog.

[fledchen]

I didn't check "providing a focus" because it was not well-defined. I'm too fogged to provide a more detailed response today but I will try to finish up my thoughts on the subject sometime this weekend.

[springingpups]

I checked "providing a focus" because, in my experience, when most people claim that their dog "provides a focus" as a task, the dog is either just THERE or is exhibiting anxious behaviors (which is then viewed as, "Oh, Fluffy is trying to get my attention so I can focus on him!").

[responsiblek9]

Hearing dogs can be tauht to repsond when the handlers name is caled. This improves social interaction . Also having the dog find a person you saw and know for help and or need to speak to can also improve soacial interaction. It depends on what they mean by social interaction.
 nora & crew

And I honestly don't see how "improving social interaction" could be considered a task of any sort. How is a dog supposed to do that?



Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong

[Kirsten]

"Providing focus" was lifted from a group who opposes "physical tasks" for PSDs.

[Cera]

Regarding 'kiss'...playing devils advocate here.  I know 99% of the time this would be seen as an emotional support 'task', but...

My dog doesn't kiss me on my face unless on command or when I am in a dissociative episode/flashback.  At that time she is trained (the cue of me being immobile and apparently 'out to lunch) to kiss me in order to provide a grounding function and allow me to come back to reality.

When I do not have my dog, a human aid will give me an ice pack/wet cloth to put on my face or place the ice pack/wet cloth on my face in the same manner my pup uses her tongue.  Therefore, in this instance, this task is trained and used for more than emotional support.

That said, I would never in a million years bank my dog being a 'task trained SD' on that one task.  Actually, I rarely mention it because 'kiss' is typically just a dog being a dog.  But, still, this is a task we worked very hard to train and it is one of the ways that my SD does help me mitigate my particular disability.

Cera

[Kirsten]

It depends on what the purpose of the behavior is.  I guess I don't think of it as "kiss" when I use it as a signal.  My friend's seizure alert dog was taught to lick the palm of her hand to signal an oncoming seizure.  His natural alert behavior was to bite her arm and try to drag her to the ground, so this was quite an improvement.

Signals can be all sorts of things from licks, pokes, and whacks, to pointing, bringing things, and running back and forth.  Signals transmit information, not affection.  That's the difference.

If the purpose of the lick is to tell you something related to your disability, something you couldn't recognize on your own, then it is probably part of a task.  This would include things like signalling for the doorbell or smoke detector.  Whether seizure alerts count as tasks is a little unclear because it is a natural, not trained, behavior of some dogs.

If the puprose of the lick is to convey concern, consolation, or affection, then it is emotional support.

Licking is a natural behavior of most dogs.  Trying to prove it was trained may be problematic.

[my4winds]

actually, last time I checked, Bonnie Bergin was teaching snuggle (hug), kiss, and lap as service dog trained tasks.  her reasoning is that lap is a position that puts the dog where a person with limited upper body mobility can attach the leash or put on the collar or jacket.  she also teaches feet-where the dog puts it's feet on the persons feet on the wheelchair feet thingies, and chin-where the dog puts it's head on the person's lap.  this one is used as a delivery position for the retrieve, especially if the person's hands don't work too good, and they have to use their arm to hold onto whatever the dog just delivered.  she believes that people using wheelchairs don't really get adequately hugged, and that by teaching the dog snuggle (hug) the person, being a primate gets that full frontal contact.  but when she produces a dog, for any type of disability, from mobility, to brain disorder, she teaches each of them ninety trained tasks before she starts to specialize for the individual person. 

so maybe some of the psd people have gotten ahold of Bergins list of tasks, and think they can pick and choose, rather than seeing it as part of a total program as she presents it.

[my4winds]

Bonnie Bergin invented service dogs in this country, she invented the ADA legislation, she invented the training of service dogs, and she invented the language we use commonly within the service dog community.

[Kirsten]

No she didn't.  Service dogs were in this country before she was born, during WWI.

[responsiblek9]

In europe back when many of the countries banned the use of cart dogs , They made an exception for dogs who assisted disabled people. They could still use the dogs to help them get around. Also in Europe for  hundreds of years the disabled and blind beggars used dogs to fetch for them , Money articles and oddball useful things and tricks to gain money or to assist them. No one has a complete record of what many of these dogs did. Poodles were often used by the blind . In all reality the idea of using dogs to assist the disabled  has been relabeled and "reinvented" many many times over in history.Example woodcuts in France and a piece in Pompei..
Many of the tasks used for service dogs came from other uses like , hunting and older hunters having the dogs do things that are hard for the hunter to do like pick up shot shells and anything else they dropped. Messenger dogs was from war time use  but the origin of this was the farmers wife often handing or tying on a message or sending the dog with a basket of lunch for the farmer to get in another part of the property. Opening gates and doors was often used by farmers and herders for assisting moving livestock and even letting the horses  and cattle out of stalls and barns in the morning . Lightswitches is a new one because electricity has not been around that long. Dogs have been used as an extention of a man's hand for  thousands of years.

 I have not dug around to see who publicized the modern version view of dogs assisting humans . Guide dogs is one part. That was over in europe and was mostly brought to public light in World war one.
 But on the assistance dogs it is a scattered thing. The idea  and publicizing mobility dogs to become more than a novel scarce use of a rare well trained dog is a more modern thing.
 Then the  publicizing  and formalized training methods of  modern hearing dog use came after that.

[my4winds]

I guess I'm brainwashed.  the way she tells the story, her personal struggle to develop CCI, she believes she did.   sorry.  I'm gullible.

[responsiblek9]

Laugh . many of the earlier service dog programs try the claim to fame of inventing the use of mobility dogs.  it gets fun  digging through history for the real stories and i LOVE to dig . Over in the guide dog section there is quite a bit on the hiostory and then some on the mobility dogs. There is a lovely pic of a 1800's set of mobility dogs over in that area. But this was not unusual over in europe .

 The service dog training is not standardized . Each program may have their own version and methods but overall each is a bit different or uses different methods.  Now the guide dog training  methods are more standardized in many ways. But even then there is still a lot of variation.

 But it proves there are many ways to get to similar end products.

It has been a slow shuffle to show what tasks are vital to the disabled person and then what is fluff and would not be seen as a task.