09/18/2023
We’ve helped a lot of owner trainers train their service dogs, both in person and online. And there are a few things we've noticed people fail to consider BEFORE bringing home their dog that have a massive effect on whether or not they will be successful:
1. The puppy phase: I’ll be blunt here. Puppies are exhausting. They don’t sleep through the night, they play bite, they p*e on the floor, and they’ll chew on anything. They're the dog equivalent of a two year old child. Make sure that you can handle this BEFORE bringing your puppy home, have a plan, and find support if you need it. I’ve known A LOT of handlers that have physical health and/or mental health setbacks after bringing their puppy home because they didn’t fully understand how exhausting puppy raising can be. Then you hit adolescence, a whole other thing.
2. Service dogs draw a lot of attention: People will stare, and talk to you, and try to pet your dog. You may have access issues, you may have to educate people. You need to make sure that you are going to be able to owner train a young dog in public with this extra attention.
3. Family support: You really do need the support of everyone living in your home (family, partners, roommates, etc.). If the people who live in your home are not on the same page as you, or won’t follow your lead, you’re going to struggle. A lot. I see this happen ALL THE TIME. And it is a HUGE contributing factor to wash outs.
4. You have to have access to the things you need: This sounds obvious, but I see this come up ALL THE TIME. A service dog needs to be trained around all kinds of people, kids, dogs, and other animals, and in all kinds of locations. If you can't get to public for short training sessions, or you don't have any friends to act as helpers (including children), or you don't have access to well behaved adult dogs for training around, you need to have a plan for this ahead of time.
5. The timeline: It’s not always faster to train your own service dog. Training a service dog takes at least two years, and you really can’t be relying on a dog until they’re an adult (two years old). So while they may have lots of tasks on board well before their 2nd birthday, you won’t have a service dog for nearly two years after bringing your dog home, and for most handlers, there’s a period of time where that dog actually makes things worse (because raising a young dog is exhausting, see #1). One of the fastest ways to set yourself up to fail at this, is to go into this with the expectation that owner training means you’ll have a service dog by a certain point in time.
(Picture: 1st image, note with the words "Things to consider" on grid paper, with yellow coffee cup sitting on top, sitting on top of blue boards. 2nd image, young yellow lab puppy with read collar, laying on a blue blanket. 3rd image. adolescent yellow lab, with blue vest and leash, laying on grey concrete.)