TRAINING MY DAUGHTER’S ASSISTANCE DOG; A mother’s perspective.
Miniature Labradoodle
Raising a Furry Support: What it’s been like training my daughter’s Assistance Pup.
By Zebra Mum Zoe.
February 2024
Often when I’m out and about with the crazy cute circus that is my awesome daughter and her service pup I’m asked, “How long does it take to train a service dog?”, my answer is always, “it takes a lifetime”. This isn’t meant to be a discouraging answer, but a brief glimpse into the monumental task this is. The truth is that you get about 10 years of service per dog and while the training will ebb and flow in intensity, you are committing yourself to not only teaching your dog specific skills but also constantly refining and maintaining them for their entire service life.
So why on earth would I do this to myself? When our daughter, Zelda, hit rock bottom with her chronic illness, my husband and I immediately discussed the idea of a dog. Our reasoning was that a furry friend might make a sucky situation a little less sucky. But as we thought through logistics, I knew in my heart that not only would my daughter get attached to the new fluffbutt but that as she started adjusting to her new normal and re-accessing the community, the very last thing she’d want to do is leave her new bestie behind. So I decided to go for broke and attempt to train this future pup into a certified assistance dog to assist her with her disabilities. For some reason my immediate thought of this was of the gorgeous Saint Bernard, Nanna, in the Peter Pan movie, carrying the tray of cod liver oil to the children, like a nanny. Of course in typical Disney fashion of presenting unrealistic fairy tales, our situation has ended up looking a little different than this image, but I love where we’ve ended up so much more.
It's now been over a year since we got Lulu (short for Riolu, the name of a Pokemon, one of Zelda’s passions) the mini Labradoodle. So I figured it was time to share what our experience has been like - the good, amazing, bad and ruff.
First off, would I recommend anyone else attempt this insanity? Not to sound too much like all other advice you’ll inevitably read after, but it really does depend on your situation. For us - Zelda is homeschooled. We access the community differently every day - some days we’re in therapy appointments, others we’re on field trips, others we’re just running errands around the shops - Lulu has to be ready for all of those. Zelda is also only 9, meaning she needs an alternate handler to help her with Lulu - aka yours truly. If Zelda was in mainstream school we’d need to hire someone to help out and both the environment and routine would be extremely different. While Lulu has gotten used to being around kids and not interacting with them while she’s working, kids are naturally curious and would be around her 5 days a week - that’s a lot of interactions to manage for both the pup and alternate handler. If Zelda was in mainstream school, I can honestly say I’d spend my time and efforts training Lulu to support Zelda at home after school and weekends rather than aim for public access rights as a service dog.
I’ve also had to keep in mind that there are tons of steps from bringing the tiny puppy home to getting them fully certified. You may get a pup who doesn’t want to do the work or you may not have the capacity to train even with support. This isn’t to discourage anyone from attempting this but to stress that in this situation you are playing the long game and things can happen. We’re a bit more than halfway there and I’ve always tried to remember during this process that it could still fall apart but even if it does we’re still going to end up with a well-trained, amazing friend for my daughter.
We started training Lulu essentially the day we got her at 10 weeks. The first 3 months with a new puppy were, for me, the toughest. It’s utterly exhausting and more than a bit frustrating to live with a creature that’s cuter than ought to be allowed but that you’re also having to teach to not pee everywhere every 10-20 minutes, not bite you constantly and not shriek like their leg’s being removed the moment they can’t see you in the room. While I never hit the “Oh my god, I have to take her back” stage, the puppy blues definitely hit, along with a few tears. And while adolescence comes with its own challenges, things did get easier.
We started working with Em at Paws for Assistance right in those early days supporting us in training. Our overall training situation is very different from someone training their own service dog to assist them. Currently, Lulu is essentially my service dog and my “job” for her is to support my daughter. This means she’s learned to listen to my commands but stay by my daughter’s wheelchair when we’re out in the community. To do this, we started with me taking Lulu out on my own several times a week to learn and practise how to behave while “working”, then slowly bringing Zelda in. Now we all go out together with Lulu sporting her very smart “L” plate service vest and ID that gives her access to just about anywhere. In time, Zelda will take more control of Lulu in public and Lulu will be looking to her for commands rather than me.
The biggest aspect of training a service dog is that you’re essentially training 2 dogs in 1 - 1 dog in their vest in “working mode” and the other dog is for the rest of the time. This is why you need to leave working dogs alone in public - trainers spend so much time creating those boundaries of “this is how you act in your vest” with that dog and if you deliberately distract them then they can forget what they’re doing! In the early days, the minute Lulu’s vest was off, she’d be pulling on the lead searching for everything she’d had to ignore while working. So we had to train again - this is how you act when not in a vest - yes, you’re allowed to sniff, say hi to people. No, you may not pull my arm off. I lovingly call her off mode “brat mode” because Lulu’s personality has the most gorgeous streak of cheek - her off time includes watching me for the opportune time to steal a hand towel or sock so that someone in the family will chase her around. The fact she switches so quickly and easily between her two modes shows me just how much she adores her work.
It’s been a complex job for me to learn how to train Lulu to do the thing, then get her to do the thing with Zelda in tow and then teaching Zelda to get Lulu to do the thing, all while maintaining their bond as a team. Good thing I’ve got the next 10 years to do it! It’s a big ask for sure, dedicating yourself to 10 years of training but I feel you can look at in 2 ways - 1. Training never ends and 2. You get what you put in for those 10 years. Dog training can be tremendously boring - the number of times you have to say sit, over and over until you don’t think they’ll ever get it…and then they do! And it’s so exciting! Until you have to do it all over again to learn “down” and then “leave it” and so on and so on. There will always be more to teach, things you miss, things you’re doing great and things you could be doing better. And while that can be disheartening (the training never ends!) it also means you can take your time - you’ve got 10 years to get your dog where you want them to be and they can go as far as you are willing to take them.
All this to say that if you do end up taking this path or even just training a dog in general, remember all this means that you don’t have to do this perfectly, nor should you try to! Give yourself plenty of grace, and then give your dog some more - you are both doing the best you can and are exactly where you need to be. Remember that training happens in both the deliberate and non-deliberate moments - your dog is always learning from you and really only wants to please you as best as they can.
At the end of the day, It’s true what they say - we as humans don’t deserve dogs for they are the most incredible creatures on the planet. I will be forever grateful to Em at Paws for Assistance for her help on this journey, to my amazing daughter for coming along and getting involved and of course to the incredible Lulu for being the best puppo we could ever ask for. If dogs could thrive on her favourite treat of shredded cheese, I doubt I’d ever feed her anything else.
