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This comes up sometimes when I talk about what I'm working on with Matilda, so I'm going to write out a pretty in-detail description of what I'm doing, how it works, and how I trained it for future reference. While there are other tasks I'd like to teach Tilly, most of what we have been focused on is emphasizing executive dysfunction support right now, and I've been more or less poking at what works and what doesn't for me for the last year or so.

Featured: an effective working machine. (Caveat: Tilly is 17mo old and very much still a work in progress; I am genuinely surprised at how well she is already working for me, but I don't expect her to be finished for at least another year or so.)

I am also going to run through some thoughts about service animals and training animals as accessibility tools for a second. See, this is a service dog task... and people get very pushy and prescriptive about how a service animal works, what it does, what it looks like and where it goes. This is common in visible accessibility aid spaces and triply common in service dog discussions, because service animals in public have really high standards for obedience that are designed to keep public spaces accessible for everyone. But not all service tasks need to be done in public spaces to be useful, and I think we do folks a disservice by equating service animals with public access and participation in public spaces. I think a lot of support tasks can be done fine from the home and in household spaces, without requiring public access to be useful--and because public access readiness is indisputably the most resource-intensive part of training a "finished" service dog, emphasizing public access as a definitional and mandatory component of service dog training means that the kinds of support that can be very effectively done by dogs are a lot less accessible for a lot more people. (Dogs are for example very good at handling people who struggle with systems degrading and needing to be rebuilt, like many of us with ADHD.)

Lots of tasks can be trained and done by any dog, even dogs that can't do public access, and DIY approaches to accessibility kludges are a long and honorable tradition within disability communities. (See here the history of hearing alert dogs, which is very different from guide dogs.) At-home service animals are absolutely a thing. This task isn't going to hurt anyone or affect anyone but you and your dog, and as far as I'm concerned it falls firmly within "if you think this would be fun, you should try teaching it" with a side of "if having an animal who does this appeals to you, you are definitely disabled enough to deserve to have an aid for this job, because abled people do not find this particular thing difficult."

Another note: dogs that do this for you, as well as animals trained to the standard of any pet that give your brain structure that helps you live your life effectively? At least in the US, even if you do not live in a pet-friendly lease or landlord, you can request an ESA letter from your mental health care professional which allows you to keep a pet as an "emotional support animal"--giving that pet the same housing protection that public access service dogs have. Rights around service animals are specific to the contests that legislation for different things entails. If an animal to structure your life is something that would help you and you can look after that animal, even if you are living in rentals you should be able to keep a pet to do this.

Anyway, I promised a step-by-step tutorial.

How to get a dog to act as your personal Bedtime Police

A Tip For Success: If you struggle with bedtimes, my guess is that you also struggle with forward planning and executing your goals in general. I keep little jars of treats or kibble in grabbing distance everywhere I am likely to sit down or spend any time in my house, because the odds that I remember to keep my treat pouch on me in the house are pretty low. (I like these airtight spice jar containers because the opening is big enough to reach inside easily, the container air-seals, I can open them one-handed and they are essentially catproof.)

Step 1) acquire a dog. (Or a cat. I'm about 90% sure you could use a cat for this task, if your cat is bossy or food motivated enough.) I have a cattle dog because a) I get stuck a fair bit and require a fair bit of pushing and b) I enjoy pushy asshole dogs, but this is a task that is pretty easy to shape and build and therefore most dogs can learn to do it as long as you have a good motivator they care about and you can figure out what works for you. I believe @gallusrostromegalus is essentially doing this with a Cardigan Welsh Corgi, @doomspaniels uses cocker spaniels for similar executive function tasks, and @behaviornerdwithahat has made pretty good cases that you can do this with any dog--including the easygoing gundogs that are easiest to train for public access, should you decide at some point that you want to move towards that goal.

Pick whatever kind of dog you like living with best, and think about what kinds of emotional valence from the dog you'll reliably listen to. I zone hard and am quite capable of being disappointing, so having Tilly's special blend of gleeful "I WILL shove you and be REALLY annoying to GET MY WIN" is really helpful to me, but doomspaniels' Cockers just throw up a riot of HURRAY WE ARE GONNA DO A THING EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL which works well for her because disappointing the adorable hypno-spaniels is difficult. You are going to invent a great game for your dog in which they get to make you move on cue, when you don't wanna; think about how you want that game to look and what kind of energy you want your dog to bring to it.

Step 1b) get started with clicker or marker training, because you are about to do a bunch of shaping. This is technically optional but it will make your life a lot easier: get a clicker or pick a marker word (mine is "Yes!" in a particular tone) and prepare to use it religiously. You can use this marker word to help you shape your dog's responses into whatever is useful for you.

Step 2) Teach "touch." I like to start with a flat hand and encourage the dog to nudge my hand with their nose. This is a cue you can start teaching with tiny baby puppies younger than they should really be away from their littermates, and I find dogs often find it naturally rewarding. I often use it if I am in a class and my dog appears to be bored or frustrated by repetition to give us both something to "win" at: you can slowly vary where your hand is in three-dimensional space, showing the dog where to find that hand and how to get there.

Step 2b) (optional) Teach "paw", "shake", or "high-five"--a foot target on your body or hand rather than a nose target, such that the dog pokes you with a foot. This is optional but if you are prone to getting focused in a way that means you zone out, I find that dogs usually use a very different kind of stimulus movement with a paw target that often physically pulls your attention over rather than nudging you gently. If your chosen dog is large, consider this thoughtfully and make sure you encourage gentle pawing: a large dog can really knock you over doing this, and you want your bedtime reminders to be impossible to ignore but also, like, not maim you. Make those decisions before you start training.

Step 3a) (can be done simultaneously with step 3b) Begin generalizing "touch" (and "paw"), and begin extending duration: if the dog can't reach your hand when asked to touch or paw you, what does it do? What about if your hand isn't held out towards the dog but hangs loose at your side? What about if you're not making eye contact? When your dog has these cues down in one context, vary them: change the way you are holding your body, sitting, approaching the dog, and cueing the dog.

Step 3b) introduce your alarms. I use Early Bird Alarm, but any distinctive alarm tone will do. You want this to be loud enough to catch the dog's attention without causing active pain for you--and ideally, you'd like to have this alarm not suck so much for you that you automatically turn it off when it sounds without thinking about it.

What you are going to be doing with your alarms is teaching the dog: when this comes on, I come poke my human until $STATE is achieved. For me, this means standing up: Matilda can earn essentially infinite cookies by poking me until I stand up when she hears the bedtime alarm. (The meds alarm lets her earn essentially infinite cookies until I take my meds; and so forth.)

To start with, practice scheduling your alarm sound to go off at various times of the day and also schedule it to go off when you eventually want it to. Every time you and your dog hear that alarm, use your cue for "touch" or "paw." When the dog does the thing, cheer and treat. Use good shit for this; I meant it when I said Matilda believed that she could win pie for prodding me up when the alarm went on. Pay well for responding to the alarm, and if the dog experimentally offers another touch before you do the $STATE behavior that means release, you jackpot that and reward it. You want the dog to realize that being persistent means something awesome.

Know yourself: even if you are a grumpy asshole when you are broken from your awesome hyperfixation, praise your dog and make it clear that your mood is not their problem and that they have Won. The more your dog cares about your mood, the more important it is to do this. Even when I am feeling deeply sullen about having to get up and do a thing, Matilda gets her praise and her cookie. This means she's less concerned when I'm sulking off to the bathroom that I'm actually upset with her, and she's more certain she's done the right thing and is Good. I have known dogs for which even the slightest hint that you were Upset would concern them; I have also known dogs who wouldn't give a shit as long as they get what they want. I chose a dog closer to the "did I get what I wanted?" end of the spectrum in part because I cannot and will not always reliably fake not sulking when I have to get up and go to bed, and she doesn't mind a little bit of sulking if she gets to Win now that I've reassured her that yes, I did want her to do this to me.

Step 4) When your dog hears the alarm, books it to you, and is anticipating your cue, start fading transitions between your touch/paw cue and your alarm. Wait a longer beat between the two and see if your dog offers the nudge without asking; see how little a cue you need to trigger the pesterbot sequence. (Matilda is currently fading out eye contact, but for a while she needed me to make eye contact so that she could be sure that I did want the pesterbot routine.) If your dog is not succeeding at least 80% of the time, make it easier and break it into a smaller step. You want to be rewarding frequently for this behavior. If either of you are getting frustrated, take a step back and practice when it's easier for a while.

Step 5) Practice. Build practice periods in throughout the day. You're cuing the pester routine with a phone alarm; figure out what kinds of places where dog input would be valuable! Make sure you're doing a little bit every day. When you run into roadblocks, think about how you can go around them. Gently shape and build your behavior until it works the way you want it.

Step 6) Profit. Congratulations: your dog now has a job, and you have an assistant that helps you keep your life in order! Everyone wins!

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