Task list feedback?

[paintedmutt]

I've been working on a list of tasks that I need assistance with on a daily basis, and I've pretty much got it to where I consider it to be complete.  However, I'm wondering if y'all may be able to give me some feedback / critique on it, since I'm not sure if everything on it could be considered reasonable SD tasks for an individual dog.  I'm also hoping to present it to my neurologist when I see her next month and be able to say with confidence that these are things that an SD could be trained to help me with, so I wanna be sure it checks out:).


1. Balance and walking assistance / obstacle avoidance
    - Acting as a counter-balance while walking / experiencing loss of orientation in public
    - Help navigating around both stationary and moving obstacles that I may not "see"
    - Help avoid brushing up against walls or hitting limbs on obstacles while walking past them
    - Help walking on and navigating uneven ground, especially declines
    - Halt at curbs or sudden drops / steps
    - Help walking down stairs due to disorientation / balance loss / trouble "feeling" where I'm stepping
    - Help to climb stairs, pulling then bracing on each step
    - Bracing while standing up and after standing and experiencing dizziness / temporary blindness / loss of orientation
    - Brace on command in case of stumbling
    - Weight-bearing support
    - Move me out of the way approaching people or dangers that I don't notice due to distraction / disorientation

2. Picking up things / retrieving
    - Pick up items from ground, bottom shelves, etc. that I am unable to bend down far enough and pick up
    - Retrieve / pick up item from floor and place on higher area so that I may reach item
    - Retrieving basket with pain medication and bottled drink when unable to get up and and do so by myself

3. Emergency alert
    - Barking for human assistance if fall or passing out occurs while in shower

4. Intelligent disobedience
    - Refuse to cross a street if a vehicle is approaching
    - Refuse to cross a street if an emergency vehicle can be heard approaching
    - Refuse to walk in front of a vehicle driving through or pulling out of a parking lot
    - Refuse to walk in out in front of any other moving obstacle (i.e. people, shopping carts)

[paintedmutt]

I forgot to ask this in my original post, and it may very well be a stupid question on my part, but would a dog trained for these tasks be defined as a mobility dog, or a medical dog, etc (I'm assuming mobility)?

[BlindMag]

Sounds to me like many of these things are guide dog tasks, plus retrieving, with a few for mobility. Here are the ones that sound guide dog specific to me:

Counterbalance
Obstacle avoidance (other pedestrians are "obstacles" I think)
Working uneven ground & curbs

The handler determines when safe to cross the street by listening for changes in traffic flow. The handler decides when its safe to cross and knows where they want to go. The dog's job when guiding is to do obstacle avoidance and help decide the most direct route to go there.

[Sunkala Joy van Veen]

Sounds to me like many of these things are guide dog tasks, plus retrieving, with a few for mobility. Here are the ones that sound guide dog specific to me:

Counterbalance
Obstacle avoidance (other pedestrians are "obstacles" I think)
Working uneven ground & curbs

The handler determines when safe to cross the street by listening for changes in traffic flow. The handler decides when its safe to cross and knows where they want to go. The dog's job when guiding is to do obstacle avoidance and help decide the most direct route to go there.

Counter balance is not a normam GD task, neither is bracing, weght bearing, pulling up stairs or medical alert; but everything else is.  Many GD programs today don't teach retrieve, but traditionally the guide dog was suppose to pick up things you dropped.  I don't know why programs like GDB aren't teaching that because trying to find something you've dropped when you can't see can be very challenging.

[Cera]

I've found when discussing this with your doctor to also make a chart of your symptoms and then the tasks that go with it.  Sometimes doctors can get confused and having the two together seem to make a lot more sense to them.  Sometimes it is obvious, like blindness or deafness, but when you are discussing neurological symptoms its important that the doctor really gets all the neurological complaints specific to your issue. 

I've also written out specifically how human assists me when I don't have my dog so that it is really clear that these are daily needs that are needing to be met.  For example, point out that a human has to go with you to provide obsticle avoidance and a cane or walker is needed for counterbalance, or discuss specific instances where you have walked into traffic.  You do not have to do this here, this is all personal stuff.  I just vaugely remember that you were't sure if your neuro would be on board, so I wanted to give you some more suggestions.  I think it is also good to really go over all of this with your doctor because programs then ask your doctor about these specific things.  My friends doctor thought a SD was a good idea in theory but when Doc filled out the paperwork she had no idea about specific things the dog could assist my friend with which is most likely the reason her application was denied.

[bj2circeleb]

Hopesclan has described what I was thinking really well. While I see nothing wrong with the tasks, I have no idea of why you want them and I also have no need to know, but your doctor does and instead of taking in a task list you need to write down what it is you cannot do for yourself, and specifically what a human does for you and what a dog could do for you in terms of tasks, etc. That can then make great sense. It is very easy for people to pick up tasks needed for the blind, deaf or physically disabled, but when you come to neurological or psychiatric conditions and the like, the symptoms and issues are all so variable between one person and the next, you really do need to list down what you can and can't do and then link that to what a dog can do for you.

Saluka my understanding of losing the retrieve in guide dogs was that some of the best dogs were being washed out becasue they simply did not have the inkling to retrieve, and trainers were also spending huge amouts of time training this when other things were not taking nearly as long. There were also dogs who became so retrieved obsessed, that they were failed because of that. My own dog has absolutely no interest in retrieving at all, and I have had over 10 different service dog trainers attempt to teach her, and while she gets what is wanted, she has never ever done so reliably as she simply as no interest in it. Give her any other guide dog work and she excells at it, she loves road works and guiding me around obstacles, and if she is getting really frustrated I now look on websites to find out where road works are going on and take her there to give her her fix. While I agree it would be helpuful for the blind if these dogs were trained to retrived, I woudl not want to see dgos like my own washed out for simply not doing so, I think it is about finding a middle ground, and I walso see the cost of spending months trying to teach a dog to do somethign they simply do not want to do. The issue to me is not that it is ntot a standard task but rather something they do not even attmept to do anymore. I would like to see a middle ground, rather than a have or have not, but that is just my opinion.  I am not blind, I use a guid eodg for psych issues, but I do have many blind friedns some of whom have been able to teach their guides to retrieve and some who have not and they agree with me in that it is useful, but if it means less dogs, then it is not that important.

In terms of crossing roads, guide dogs at best have the maturity of a 3-4 year old child. They can lead you to safe crossing spots, they can be bascially taught to be wary of moving cars, but it is not something you can totally rely on. The blind person has been taught to use their hearing and any remaining vision to judge the flow of traffic and no guide dog program that I am aware of anywhere in the world will give someone a guide dog unless they can competently cross roads on their own without one.

I have a dog who is very much a guide dog, but is used for psych purposes. She has been taught intelligent disobedience as much as any dog can be, but more importantly for me, she has been taught to block me at all roads and refuse to move unless I give a one word command - forward. When I am in a dissocateied state at teh extreme end for me I do not speak and so I will not issue those commands! It does not matter how much I pull on the lead or harness she simply will not budge without that word, and this has saved my life on many occassions. That is a really concrete thing for a dog, do not cross a road without a command of forward and is much like a dog automatically sitting at any road. She has twice refused a command given when i was not too unwell but had made a bad judgement, but there has also been other times when she has not done so. Dogs cannot judge the flow of moving traffic, but they can be taught to be wary fo moving cars.

[responsiblek9]

 
On the retrieve this should fall in with matching the needs of the handler to the dog's skills.
If a person does not need the retrieve tasks then why not match them with a dog who has no drive to fetch .
No need to force a dog to do this,  or fail a dog who does all the guiding or other assistance work just fine but does not have the fetch skill as long as the handler who needs the dog does not need that skill.
.
 But I have noticed in at least my breed and the breeds I have used that if there is a low fetch drive in the puppy often their willingness is lower.

The fetch drive can be extinguished later by just not allowing the pup to fetch or carry .
 There are many drives a dog may show natively as pups that without use or encouragement extinguishes .

the excuse i heard about why they started discouraging retrieve in the guide dogs was the handler could not tell if the dog was retrieving or snarking food off the floor.
  Also that they were trying to prevent ball craziness in the graduated dogs because often the disabled handlers ignored the advice to NOT play ball with their guide dogs as exercise. 

[bj2circeleb]

I agree with what you have said there Nora. The food bit makes more sense to me, than what I have been told, and I also agree with the ball thing, but also comes partly back to poor team training and not teaching novice dog handlers how to play with dogs without playing with balls. I have heard of cases of guide dogs becoming so ball obsessed that it did distract them from the guiding task, which is why they discourage balls as toys as balls are the most common distraction, besides dogs and food which the handlers will encounter. But it is amazing to me just how many people have no idea of how to play with and interat with dogs without just throwing them a ball. I do know that the program that i am involved with does teach all their teams how to massage the dog during team training!!

But as you said simply match the right dog with the right person and there should be no problem. If pups are raised properly and not simply dragged everywhere then food refusal really should not be an issue as the pups would never have picked up anything off the floor in their lives and would not know how to. But that is just my opinion. Food refusal is simply not an issue here, but the programs monitor each pup individually and they are not dragged around to public places. They know to eat from birth only their food from their bowl, and they simply give up trying anything else. I am amazed at the problems I hear about food in the US, but different countries and different programs have different ways of doing things!!

[Sunkala Joy van Veen]

Hopesclan has described what I was thinking really well. While I see nothing wrong with the tasks, I have no idea of why you want them and I also have no need to know, but your doctor does and instead of taking in a task list you need to write down what it is you cannot do for yourself, and specifically what a human does for you and what a dog could do for you in terms of tasks, etc. That can then make great sense. It is very easy for people to pick up tasks needed for the blind, deaf or physically disabled, but when you come to neurological or psychiatric conditions and the like, the symptoms and issues are all so variable between one person and the next, you really do need to list down what you can and can't do and then link that to what a dog can do for you.

Saluka my understanding of losing the retrieve in guide dogs was that some of the best dogs were being washed out becasue they simply did not have the inkling to retrieve, and trainers were also spending huge amouts of time training this when other things were not taking nearly as long. There were also dogs who became so retrieved obsessed, that they were failed because of that. My own dog has absolutely no interest in retrieving at all, and I have had over 10 different service dog trainers attempt to teach her, and while she gets what is wanted, she has never ever done so reliably as she simply as no interest in it. Give her any other guide dog work and she excells at it, she loves road works and guiding me around obstacles, and if she is getting really frustrated I now look on websites to find out where road works are going on and take her there to give her her fix. While I agree it would be helpuful for the blind if these dogs were trained to retrived, I woudl not want to see dgos like my own washed out for simply not doing so, I think it is about finding a middle ground, and I walso see the cost of spending months trying to teach a dog to do somethign they simply do not want to do. The issue to me is not that it is ntot a standard task but rather something they do not even attmept to do anymore. I would like to see a middle ground, rather than a have or have not, but that is just my opinion.  I am not blind, I use a guid eodg for psych issues, but I do have many blind friedns some of whom have been able to teach their guides to retrieve and some who have not and they agree with me in that it is useful, but if it means less dogs, then it is not that important.

In terms of crossing roads, guide dogs at best have the maturity of a 3-4 year old child. They can lead you to safe crossing spots, they can be bascially taught to be wary of moving cars, but it is not something you can totally rely on. The blind person has been taught to use their hearing and any remaining vision to judge the flow of traffic and no guide dog program that I am aware of anywhere in the world will give someone a guide dog unless they can competently cross roads on their own without one.

I have a dog who is very much a guide dog, but is used for psych purposes. She has been taught intelligent disobedience as much as any dog can be, but more importantly for me, she has been taught to block me at all roads and refuse to move unless I give a one word command - forward. When I am in a dissocateied state at teh extreme end for me I do not speak and so I will not issue those commands! It does not matter how much I pull on the lead or harness she simply will not budge without that word, and this has saved my life on many occassions. That is a really concrete thing for a dog, do not cross a road without a command of forward and is much like a dog automatically sitting at any road. She has twice refused a command given when i was not too unwell but had made a bad judgement, but there has also been other times when she has not done so. Dogs cannot judge the flow of moving traffic, but they can be taught to be wary fo moving cars.

The natural retrieve is also not being used anymore by many programs in puppy selection.  This involves no training.  During puppy testing, a ball or even a wadded piece of paper is rolled, tossed, or slid in front of the puppies view.  The puppy who eagerly runs out and takes it in its mouth and turns back towards the tester, has a greater chance of succeeding as a GD.  Pfaffenberger's charts of statistics that were kept on all puppies tested, showed a strong correlation between a natural retrieve at 7 wks without any training; and successful completion of training to a working guide dog.  Teaching a dog to retrieve who has never had any retrieve games by 4 months, is difficult.  The natural instinct, even in retrieving breeds, fades if not stimulated during the socialization period.  Breeds being successfully used at the time by GDB included GSDs, labs, chessies, some goldens, German shorthaired pointers, Irish setters, boxers and occasionally others.  Their breeding program started with only GSDs, but soon incorporated labs and chessies. 

The Seeing Eye still teaches the retrieve without the problems you mentioned.  If the retrieve is taught as a puppy, it can be polished up in later training with ease, as long as the dog has the working desire in the first place.  If he doesn't even though retrieve was stimukated early, then he shouldn't be a GD as even if he can complete the training.  Under too stressful or boring situations, he might shut down.  (This only applies to those dogs who had the retrieve stimulated as puppies.)  And a dog that will become ball happy to the point that he'd rather chase a ball than work; also should not be a GD.  He should be weeded out.  The temperament that goes with this intense prey/play drive, is not suitible for a GD even if he is never taught to retrieve.

So if I were training a GD who had not had the retrieve stimulated before 4 months of age, I wouldn't wash the dog out if it did not readily learn to retrieve either.  Many programs forbid the puppy raisers from playing any retrieve games.  This is counterproductive, as is too much focus and/or using treats for retrieving with a young potential GD puppy.  It's while the puppy is with the puppy raiser that the retrieve needs to be stimulated if you want it to be taught later.  But it is the dropping of testing for the retrieve in small puppies that is the greater mistake as I see it.

[Kirsten]

I think a natural drive to retrieve indicates future success as a service dog because it is a test of pack drive.  It shows cooperative play.  He has a choice about whether to bring the object back.  Is his natural inclination to share it?  With games like tug he isn't given the opportunity to make a choice about whether to share.  Also, mouthy dogs are easier to teach most tasks ("mouthy" meaning a dog who likes to use his mouth to manipulate objects).

[Cera]

The Seeing Eye still teaches the retrieve without the problems you mentioned.  If the retrieve is taught as a puppy, it can be polished up in later training with ease, as long as the dog has the working desire in the first place.  If he doesn't even though retrieve was stimukated early, then he shouldn't be a GD as even if he can complete the training.  Under too stressful or boring situations, he might shut down.  (This only applies to those dogs who had the retrieve stimulated as puppies.)  And a dog that will become ball happy to the point that he'd rather chase a ball than work; also should not be a GD.  He should be weeded out.  The temperament that goes with this intense prey/play drive, is not suitible for a GD even if he is never taught to retrieve.

This is facinating.  I have a dog selected from the litter at 6.5 weeks, one of the reasons being a natural retrieve.  At 8 weeks when she went to the puppy raisers that retrieve was encouraged starting with spoons.  Soon she was retrieving all poeople things in sight.  I don't know when it developed, but she also had a very clear understand that her toys were hers (though people could take them away) and peope things should be brought to them.  When I got her at two years old, she would retrieve anything and everything for me, many by name.  But she had absolutely no interest or idea how to play ball.  For years I would take a shoe out on the play field and have her retrieve that for exercise.  Ball retrieves were learned via water and then progressed to a land game.  It definately lacks the focus any retrieves of human items has.

I find retrieves are great.  My dog isn't a good hearing alert dog at all, but she will definately get me a specific kitchen hand towel every time the mincrowave goes off.

[bj2circeleb]

As I am from Australia I cannot comment on what happens in the US programs. We do not test dogs before placement as all dogs are bred and incredibly carefully socialised on campus, to the point that we have a 10 year waiting list for certain aspects of this puppy nurting program. All pups are handled by at least five new people every day from 10 days of age to 8 weeks, and this includes people of all nationalities, ages, genders, etc, etc. Other breeds of dogs are introduced to them at 5 weeks of age, including non guide dogs, through very carefully selected and health checked dogs of volunteers and staff. They have a cat living on campus that has free roam during the day and is bought into their playroom each day from 3 weeks of age. They spend time on any manner of different services, not just household ones, but also stones, cobblestones, concrete, ashphalt, sand, dirt, tanbark, etc, etc. They are introduced to wearing collars at 5 weeks of age and begin learing to walk on a lead at 6 weeks of age. Within 2 days of being on solid food they eating out of individually named bowls and by 6 weeks of age they know to sit to wait for the bowl to be put down before they begin to eat. They have began toileting on command, and know the the then commands the puppy raiers will use with them. They know to toilet outside, but will if desperate use a piece of artifical grass inside if they need to. There mother is able to come and go from them at will through special doors. The puppy raisers do continue the socialisiation but their primary aim initially is to teach the pup to walk on a lead without sniffing anything at all. Only when it can do that in the community, will it begin to enter public places and then only when the full attention of the puppy raiser can be given to the pup. The aim of the puppy raisiing progarm is to proof the pups in the comman they learnt while with their littermates and mom.

All of the dogs are allowed to chase after toys and are encouraged as a natural form of play, but the puppy raisers are discoruaged from using balls (specifically tennis balls) because they are what the dogs are more likely to see on the street. Hence the pups chase after and can fetch other toys, just not balls. They do not test the retrieve when the dogs are bought back in for temeprament testing. Hence my dog was chasing after toys at a very young age, even before the puppy raising stage and still continues to do so, but she has never bothered to bring one back to me, it just seems pointless to her!! I have to some degree been able to train her, but the motivation is simply not there for her, and in play she would simply not consider it, to her it is not fun. I have witnessed kennel staff and trainers throwing toys for dogs at all ages and stages of the training process, from very young pups right up to working guide dogs.

All dogs spend at least two weeks in the kennels at about 6 months of age, but this will be held back for bitches as they are all kennelled during all heat cycles. All dogs are in yards the size of basketball courts in groups of 4 during the day, inslugin those in training. The have trampoline beds, toys and volunteers who play and pet, them, etc. THey spend at least one hour each day in a large grass filed the size of a football field each day and also one hour in a angility yard just playiing and having fun. They are walked on lead by volunteers each day as well as speding the hour with a trainer each day. overnight they are in kennels the size fo a toilet cubical with one other dogs, except for bithcehs in heat who sleep in the whelpging boxes each heat cycles aloene, so that if they do become breeders it becomes a comfortable and second home to her. Breedign bitches are bought in 10 days before they are due to whlep and have extra massages and the like as this has been found to hlep the pups in future. All pus are handled from birth and have stimulation carefuly done from vet nurses Itechs) fro the moment they are born, as well as introducing them to many household sounds, etc, etc.

[Sunkala Joy van Veen]

Wow!  I am impressed.  I don't know of any USA program that is doing anything near this extensive. 

And as for not using balls to play retrieve, I am in favor of that.  There is no reason retrieve stimulation, nor retrieve training to pick up dropped items; need to use balls.

As for the partner not knowing whether the working guide dog is reaching for food or a dropped item, I could see that might be a problem, especially for labs who tend to be very food oriented.  Most GSDs with a strong working drive won't be interested in food while they are working anyway.  They often won't even take treats, or take them then spit them out; when they have reached the ah-ha point in their training in which they understand they have a job, or before that point when they are concentrating on learning something new.  This refusal of treats is one reason I've heard that they are not as easy to train.  But I don't believe a one-size-fits-all training should be used anyway.  If the dog isn't focused on food, use another method of training.  And I prefer a working dog to be more work focused than food focused, ball focused, tug focuse, or what have you; anyway!

[bj2circeleb]

These dogs never eat anything except for dry dog food out of bowls. My own dog has walked straight over a open bag of french fries at an off lead park, and I didn't realise until after i crossed some 10 metres behind her. The only time she has ever been distracted or even looked at food was when a bag of dry dog food has spilt in the grocery store ile, and she sat and waited for permission to eat it!! It took quite a number of corrections to get her to leave it. A staff member came along with a broom and shovel and began to clean it up and she looked at them as though they were crazy!! I think it is the only time she has ever tried to apply for a new job!! She is a lab and if her food is around she is so distracted by it it is beyond a joke, but she knows her food and her food only. It has caused issues when she is sick as she simply refuses to eat chicken and rice, but there are now dog foods you can buy for vomiting and sick dogs and so I simply have to buy them. All food for the pups is provided by the program and so it is very clear what food the pups are being given all the way through the puppy raising stage. The program provides everything for the puppy raisers. Over 90% of the dogs they train are labs, but they simply do not have the food issues which I hear of in the US. They never ever use treats during training, they use praise and praise alone, but play with them later. When they first wear the harness they are fed in it for a week to give them good feelings about it, and the trainer who will be working with also feeds them for the first 2 weeks in the kennels, rather than kennel staff to help the dog to bond with the trainer, as they do acknowledge that these dogs do see food as important. But they have simply been taught to keep their heads off the ground at all times when on lead, and it never faulters. They are not corrected for sniffing as the simple thing is they do not know how to sniff when on lead. If a dog has never done something then you do not have to undo it. They are not given the chance to learn to pick up some food off the ground or to sniff or the like and so they simlply do not do it, well that is the way i describe it and it is the only thing I have ever seen in any of their dogs. We all know that the best way to train a dog to do anything is to not let them learn to do it in the first place and thi sis now this program operates from the word go, especially in regards to sniffing and picking up food from the ground.

The dogs in training as I stated are in yards with other dogs during the day. When people walk in with leads to take them for walks they are interested, but don't really care. When anyone walks in with a puppy jacket or harness they all run to the gate and sit perfectly straight as we did in elementary school wanting to be picked first!! These dogs are well aware of what the harness and jacket mean and it means the world to them. They are trained on lead and the puppy jackets for the first two months and then the harness is slowly introduced to them, so both are important to them, and they know it means no pets, not this, not that, but it is all they want!!

But we do have a volunteer base wich is very strong trhoughout the australian communtiy, but especially in this program and most of this could not happen without it.

[paintedmutt]

Thanks for the replies, everyone! 

I had no idea that retrieving was considered a guide dog task, as all the mobility dog organizations I've looked in to have that listed as a main task that they train for mobility assistance.  As for the intelligent disobedience, I actually read about that in regards to psychiatric service dogs, and since I suffer from nystagmus and other disorienting symptoms, I thought it would help me to have a service dog trained to avoid traffic dangers.  It never occurred to me that intelligent disobedience was more of a guide dog task as well, though.  I e-mailed the organization I am looking into a few days ago with some questions, and if they trained such a task was one of them, but I still haven't heard back from them. 

In any case, I may omit the intelligent disobedience task from my list...while the biggest thing I'm looking at when coming up with tasks is what I need help with from people on a daily basis, since I can't drive and we don't have any public transportation in my area, I'll always have someone with me in public to escort me safely across streets anyway.  However, I'd like to be able to take off and shop or otherwise walk around by myself in public (plus have assistance when I'm just home by myself), which is what I'm considering with these tasks.  An SD trained in intelligent disobedience would just allow my boyfriend or whoever else I may be walking with to be less focused on me in potentially dangerous public situations.

I went ahead and took the time to come up with a chart describing what I have trouble with / cannot do myself, how people or my cane help me with those things, and how a service dog would help in place of those (in addition to some extra stuff), so thank you for that suggestion as well hopesclan:)!  I'm sure that'll come in handy, considering the scatterbrained and assumption-prone way my neurologist thinks:P.