A Dog Like Eddie

 It has been approximately 8 weeks since I have taken that cute, bubbly, puppy known as Eddie, into my fold and he has been a true blessing.  Eddie belongs to the Helping Paws Organization and is from the E litter also known as the Edge litter, of potential assistance dogs.  If you missed my last posting, Helping Paws enlists volunteer puppy raisers to take a pup for two and a half years and bring it to its full potential. In the end, it will hopefully be trained well enough to become someone’s service dog.

In the short weeks that I have had Eddie, he has learned a kit and caboodle of behaviors and cues which are very diverse, and not what one would learn in a six week obedience class.  There was the 'shaping' of different ways to interact with a plastic tub, to his now known repertoire of cues going in the order below:

“Better Go Now” (to go potty on command)

“Release” (being released from a cue)

“Kennel” ( just as it describes)

“Uh Uh” (stop that behavior)

“Off”  (from jumping up on someone or something)   

“Car”  (getting in the car)

“Wait” ( a brief pause)

“Name” ( Eddie)

“Come” ( as it implies)

“Easy” ( taking something from the hand in an easy manner.)   

When training for general obedience, my normal course would go like this. Teach the dog its name, eye contact (watch me), sit, down, heel, wait, stay, leave it, and come.  Generally one to two commands would be taught a week. We would normally say the dog’s name, lure the dog into a position if needed, give the command, and then click and treat. We also would not start training a dog in public until all puppy shots were done, thus making the dog near or over the 3 month mark. In many instances, people do not take their dogs for training until they are older and more problematic.  

Having gotten Eddie at the age of 7 weeks old, and starting training with him that very week, he has already learned more than what many older dogs would learn in a six to eight week obedience course.

 Through my training with Eddie you will notice that his name was not actually put to a formal cue until pretty far down the list.  We have not, up to this point, done any luring with special treats, rather we wait patiently for the puppy to figure out a behavior we want to see, then click and treat that behavior using his normal daily dose of dog food.  We don’t actually introduce the cue until about a week later, or longer, with the exception of ‘Better go now’, which we use right away, both on leash and off. 

I hate to brag, but Eddie is one very smart little puppy, more than likely due to excellent breeding stock. As I went through his list of 75 cues that he would eventually have to do, I noticed that he is already doing things on that list that I have not asked of him.  For instance, there will come a time when I have to put to cue “go to your bed.”  Since day one, Eddie has been coming into the house and going directly to one of the dog beds in the kitchen, regardless if there is already a dog lying on that bed! He will go to the bed, sit down, sometimes sitting on Brody’s head, and look at me and wait.  I have never asked him to do this, but though I cannot yet put a cue to it, I want to build on that behavior and reward him for it each time.  Sitting was another cue Eddie had been performing from the day I brought him home. He will follow me from room to room and sit in front of me, then look up at me as if to say, “Here I am!”   This is a desired behavior; however that cue has not yet been introduced either.

I am finding it fascinating that though this way of training, to me, seems backwards,  it works just as well, if not better. If the dog is doing the desired behavior on its own and being rewarded for it, we know the dog will repeat that desired behavior for the reward,  and then, we add the cue to it later. In the end, the dog has learned or taught itself a desired behavior for life.  On the other hand in normal obedience training, we put the command to the dog, then lure him into place, and then we are finding at times that we need to repeat our commands more or give more prompts/treats to get the desired behavior. 

At this point, I have to say that I am thrilled to be learning a new way of doing things, and I can see why it takes so long to ready a dog for life long skills to aid a human.  I can also see why normal obedience classes would not work this way for a trainer. The cost would be phenomenal due to the time it takes  and there would be no clientele who could afford it! 

Of course shaping and cues are not the only things going on for Eddie during the week. There is socialization to a variety of people, places, other dogs, sounds, textures, and more. We go through stores with Eddie sitting on his bed in a shopping cart so he can see and hear all that go on. One of his favorite places is Home Depot, where he get lots of loving, and his second would be Target, where on a nice day, he can sit outside the store and greet people, as well as practice his skill of walking nicely beside a cart.
  One day while sitting outside of Target, I  asked an elderly lady  if we could follow her to her car so Eddie could practice walking beside a cart. She was very happy to help us in our mission and we chatted as we walked. It turned out to be a bit longer than we expected as she forgot where she parked her car! Ah, the little smiles in life!

We also go to the lakes so he can experience the texture of the sand, the docks, and the water, as well as see the geese and sea gulls up close and personal.  

 At this point in his life, Eddie seems to like all people he has come in contact with and has only been frightened by a couple of items. One being a bunch of small flags on the church lawn, that seemingly touched him like a bunch of fingers coming up from the ground in a bad Halloween movie, and the other frightening thing was the hollow sounding water drains that run through the sidewalks of town.

How you can help from afar!

This Thursday, November 17, in MN is Give to the Max Day. It is a day for all to come out and support organizations that make the communities stronger.  Eddie and the E litter will be on display to the community showing what they have learned so far.  I am sure there are many wonderful organizations out there but I am partial to this one!

If you have an extra ten bucks to spare, it will go a long way in helping another human to gain a piece of their life that was taken from them through special circumstances or illness. Actually you will be helping more than just one person; a dog such as Eddie can help the whole family in many ways. A dog like Eddie can give a war veteran with PTSD   the strength to take his kids to a park, or to school.  A dog like Eddie can help a person dependent upon a wheelchair and family, to become independent in other ways thereby freeing up some family duties.

10 bucks people!  Compare it. If you drink two cups of Starbucks coffee a day, you will spend 126.00 a month, or 1,533.00 in a year, and 45, 99.00 over 30 years!  

Now, doesn’t ten dollars seem like a real bargain?   Help me to help them!

Click this link to take you to the donation page.  LINK  Type in Helping Paws and the amount you wish to donate.

Click here to see Eddie learning the retrieval of every day household products 

UPDATE: Eddie has come a long way since the above clip when he was just a pup, He can now  retrieve items and place them in my hand, close doors and drawers, turn on lights and remove clothes from the dryer. click here is a short clip of this . 

Click here to see the recipients of the dogs, ~aka thepeople your $10.00 will help

Follow Eddie on Face Book! 

Helping Paws~ The Recipients~

Eddie  7 weeks old

The Veterans 

            As I turned the street’s corner, I saw a man and women walking two  beautiful Golden Retriever puppies near the tree shaded building.  I parked my car on the road’s side, grabbed my camera case and car keys, and exited the car.

            Immediately I took the camera from its cradle inside the case, put it to my eye, and started shooting pictures. I then took out the mini video camera from my back pocket in order to capture all the movement as well. After all, this is what I came to see!

            A few more dogs and handlers arrived and made their way into the building, the building where the Helping Paws Organization does their training. I shut the camera down and followed them inside. Standing inside a huge open room was a tall young woman with long curly black hair. She was dressed in Capri’s, flip flops, and a sleeveless blouse to combat the summer’s heat.

            “Jo?” I asked.

            “Yes.” She replied.

            “Hi, I’m Sally.” I said. “I’ve been the one emailing you about coming to see how this process works.”  

            “Oh, Yes!” Jo replied. “Glad you could make it.”

            “Thank you.” I said. “I have been very interested since I saw the news clip.”

            The news clip had been about the organization needing volunteer puppy trainers to help with their next litter of pups. What is a volunteer puppy Trainer?  They are people that Helping Paws uses to raise and train their service dogs for the first two and a half years of the dog’s life, under the guidance of their professional instructors.

            As Jo and I spoke, more dogs and handlers arrived and each went to a different place in the room.  I glanced around and noticed the different items used to train the dogs. There was medical equipment, different types of doors with pull handles, a handicapped door button that one would see in public buildings, a working light switch, a sliding glass door, and stands for the dogs to jump up on. Each person was working their dog on a piece of this equipment. I saw one man working his dog to open the sliding glass door and a woman having her dog turn a small light switch on and off, as the light bulb blinked in conjunction with every movement of the dog’s nose. Another was working her dog to pull a regular house door open, and yet another lady was working her dog to get up and down off of the stand. There was so much to watch, that I was not sure where to look first!

            “As you can see,” Jo said, “each dog is working on a different skill set. They will make their way around the room to practice on each piece of equipment.”

            “Wow!” I said. “I am not sure what I expected, but this is very impressive!”

 

            After about fifteen minutes Jo addressed the group. “It’s so nice outside, why don’t we go out and play a game with the dogs?”

            She then grabbed a couple of tubs with various objects in them, brought them outside and emptied them onto the ground. She had the trainer’s trade dogs and form teams. Each team of dog's and handler's had to select one item on the ground and use a command to have the dog pick it up, and then drop it back into the tub. Whichever team filled the tub first, won.  The dogs were at various stages of learning, so some got it right away and some needed a bit more practice. But all gave it a valiant effort!

            Once the game was finished, Jo had had everyone go inside and grab a wheelchair and once again all headed to the beautiful weather outside. I observed dogs walking at the side of the trainer’s wheelchair, dogs that were instructed to wait at a door, dogs that were instructed to push the automatic door button, and dogs that were instructed to hop over the trainer’s legs to get in the right position to push the automatic button, then hop back into a left heel position to the wheelchair.

            This is something I want to learn more about! I thought. I really appreciated Jo allowing me to come down and see what ‘puppy raising’ was all about.

            Months went by and life got busy for me. Peter and I had just adopted a young Newfoundland rescue, who we named Skylar.  Skylar was the third large dog to occupy our already crowded space in this small home. She also needed a lot of training, but settled in nicely with our other two dogs, Brody, a Newfoundland/Golden mix, and Emma, my old Newfoundland girl that I had since her birth.

            Jo notified me shortly after my adoption of Skylar, that there would be a litter due in the Helping Paws organization and asked if I was still interested in being a puppy raiser.

            I gave it a lot of thought, and in fact I had been giving it a lot of thought since that day  I first visited them. However, Skylar, at the time, was still very much a puppy and a very large puppy at five months old, and still needed direction. To take on another pup at this time would probably not be wise.  Also, in the back of my mind was that heavily weighted question. 
"If I were to become a puppy raiser, I would be its foster and trainer for approximately two and a half to three years and then I would have to give it up. Could I do that?"

One Year Later

            A year flew by since I considered becoming a puppy raiser. One day an email came to my inbox inviting me to join Helping Paws at their upcoming open house to meet the dogs and some of the recipients.   Skylar’s training was going fantastic, and in that year sadly, I had lost my old girl Emma. The house was now down to just two dogs.

            “Hey Pete?” I yelled from the basement. “Do you want to take a ride to Hopkins?”

            “What?” Peter asked. “What’s in Hopkins?”

            “Helping Paws.” I replied. “You know that place that trains the service dogs? They are having an open house. You can see the facility and how they do things.”

            “Sure!” Pete replied. “Why not?” 

            And so we went. We met and talked with many puppy raisers as well as talked to the recipients of dogs past.  The rest, as they say, is history!  

            That ‘thought’, the one that weighed so heavily in my mind, of giving the dog up,  had been played out over and over again in my mind for a year, and was still lurking in the background.
       With that thought however, also came the thought of my mom, who was stricken with polio in her twenties and raised a family of six.  How awesome would it have been if she could have had such a dog to help her?  Of course, that thought was a bit selfish on my part as my childhood Saturday mornings came to mind. Had she had an assistance dog to aid her, the dog could have walked with her and the bundles of laundry to the laundromat, spent the day with her washing and drying those bundles, and it would have left my Saturdays free!   Pathetic I know!

            Weighing it all out, in the end I thought, how selfish of me!  Yes, I will cry for weeks once the dog is gone. Let’s face it, you can’t go through that much bonding time and not have it effect you.  But, my few weeks of crying, is not enough of a reason to not do it. My heart may feel empty for a while, but another’s heart will be filled for a lifetime.

            And so, I began the journey three weeks ago, with a little black Labrador Retriever from the Max and Myrtle litter, also known as the “E” litter, who Peter and I  have named Eddie.

   

            These last  threes weeks have been a lot of exploring, shaping, and getting to know each other, and yes, there is already that bond, and I see it each time I take him into public to socialize him around people. He is pleasant in his greetings with all, but his eye contact always comes back to me.  This is the making, I believe, of a great service dog.

            Just a few nights ago, Peter and I had the pleasure to attend the graduation of twenty Helping Paws service dogs. It was a handing over of the leash, from the puppy raiser family, to a matched recipient and a new journey for the dog.

            The new owners of these beloved dogs had the opportunity to share their feelings with the crowd. I had the pleasure to once again take pictures and video, and would like to share their thoughts with you via a video in the link below. The video has been shortened for time, but all the sentiments from the recipients were the same. Sentiments of thanks and gratitude to all who took part in such a precious gift which would give them back a part of their life.

At the time of the graduation, the recipients had been working with their dog for three weeks, getting to know each other and cramming in all the learning that the puppy raisers had done over the years.  When you think about it, that’s a lot of homework!

Helping Paws is a non profit organization that runs on the generosity of others. If you would like to get involved or make a donation please go to their link.  The cost to the recipients is minimal due to the volunteers and public’s general outreach and donations. Please, go to the link and see how you can help.

 Helping paws link:    http://www.helpingpaws.org/  

          The Graduation 2015    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58uJCoyut_g

My first visit with Helping Paws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6f9SaE5XXs

Eddie  9 weeks old