Cooperative Paws
Service dog education for dog trainers
While service dogs are trained to assist in many ways — retrieving items, performing alerts, opening doors and turning on lights — helping a person safely get up from a fall involves some unique risks …
Continue Reading about Falls and Service Dogs: Essential Considerations for Trainers →
An anxiety alert is an important service dog task for some people with mental health conditions. This task serves as an early warning system: The dog alerts their handler to their increasing anxiety …
Training a service dog often requires unique tools and gadgets—not just for task training but also to accommodate the handler’s disability. Below are some of my favorite tools and gadgets that help …
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I’ve been training professionally since the early 1990s, and much has changed in the industry during that time. When I first started, positive training methods were largely focused on lure-reward. Of …
Continue Reading about Barking Up a Different Tree: How My Training Has Changed Over Time →
While training a service dog is important and serious work, incorporating play into the training process benefits both members of the team. Play can be helpful in everything from training tasks to …
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People with disabilities can have health changes that make training their service dog difficult. They may experience a health flare-up or require hospitalization. Situations like this can throw off …
Continue Reading about Supporting Owner-Trainers Through Health Fluctuations →
