Thanks for spreading the joy. Service dogs can be so amazing (and so much work). It's interesting that new dog training centers are popping up all over. We've got two in Madison:
occupaws.org Traditionally skilled Guide Dogs, but with extra home training as well as kid training. These folks have hit the ground with many paws indeed in terms of PR: they're running a full-side-of-the-bus ad of a lovely Golden pup in a training vest, labelled "Future Bus Rider."
The other is wags.net, which nominally stands for Wisconsin Academy for Graduate Service Dogs. These folks also work with inmates at the med-security women's prison; the dogs go live with the women for four months and come out with excellent obedience skills. And of course it may be saving the sanity of some of those prisoners.
I wonder if the new kinds of training -- positive-only, "clicker" reinforcement -- makes possible a more decentralized system? My old roomie's first dog from Long Island had a "nasty collar;" chain links with curved spikes on the inside. Nowadays I can imagine total strangers yelling at her for that.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-02-04 01:37 am (UTC)occupaws.org
Traditionally skilled Guide Dogs, but with extra home training as well as kid training. These folks have hit the ground with many paws indeed in terms of PR: they're running a full-side-of-the-bus ad of a lovely Golden pup in a training vest, labelled "Future Bus Rider."
The other is wags.net, which nominally stands for Wisconsin Academy for Graduate Service Dogs. These folks also work with inmates at the med-security women's prison; the dogs go live with the women for four months and come out with excellent obedience skills. And of course it may be saving the sanity of some of those prisoners.
I wonder if the new kinds of training -- positive-only, "clicker" reinforcement -- makes possible a more decentralized system? My old roomie's first dog from Long Island had a "nasty collar;" chain links with curved spikes on the inside. Nowadays I can imagine total strangers yelling at her for that.
Have you ever thought of a dog for yourself?