he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
Misplaced Lens Cap
cherry valley forever
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
@theartofmadeline
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
roma★
Three Goblin Art
trying on a metaphor
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One Nice Bug Per Day
if i look back, i am lost
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
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Product Placement
ojovivo
dirt enthusiast
noise dept.
seen from Malaysia
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@servicedogstuff-blog
Do you ever think about how unique you actually are? Like I'm bi, have celiac disease, have panic disorder, my brother is autistic, am incredibly empathetic, I want to adopt, I love to silkscreen print, I'm homeschooled, am proud to be plus size, have recovered from an eating disorder, and self-harming. And I think that everyone should be proud of what they've gone through, because some people don't make it through.
Update: I haven’t been active for a long time on this blog and I thought it was time to give an update. First off, and most importantly, my SDiT: Basil is no longer in training, he’s washed out. There are many reasons I’ve done this but basically, he’s not cut out for it. I still love him and he’s still going to live with me and I’m still training him so that he can help me inside of my home, but he can’t handle public access. And, at the moment, it’s not possible for me to get another dog. However, in the future I will be getting a puppy (probably a healer, or aussie based on my personal breed preference) and training it to be my service dog. That being said, I’m not going to delete this blog, nor am I going to be completely inactive. Until then, for my panic disorder, I am trying other, less ideal treatment options. I hope by keeping my blog active I can keep expanding my knowledge of training and keep up to date on what’s going on in the service dog world. I also hope that others can benefit from the information I post, especially because there are not many service dog blogs. Thank you guys, and keep up your training (it will pay off!)
Psychiatric Service Dogs: Let them help you help yourself.
I just wanted to write a little blurb about Psychiatric Service Dogs…
Most of the people reading this are probably very aware of the difference a service dog can make in the life of a person with a psychiatric disability. There are plenty of discussions online in the PSD community about how these dogs can help, and what tasks can be helpful in mitigating the affects of certain mental illnesses. What I do not see discussed much, if at all, is that the dog very likely will not be able to help you if you are unwilling to accept their help.
What I want to address isn’t how these dogs help us, but how you, as a PSD handler, have to make an effort in order for your dog to be able to help you.
As a mentally ill SD handler, you must be willing to let your dog do their job. To elaborate, I’ll go into some tasks that I rely on my dog for. All of the following are my opinions, but they are opinions that I seldom see mentioned, if at all, so I think they deserve some contemplation.
DPT- Whether your dog is cued to do deep pressure therapy by a conscious decision on your part or by a more subtle bodily cue they have been trained to respond to, you must be receptive to them in order for DPT to work. No matter how long the dog places their weight on you, it won’t help you, as the handler, calm down unless you make the conscious decision to pay attention to your dog and allow this task to help you come down from wherever you were. You need to allow your attention to be refocused, and allow yourself to redirect your energy away from being agitated, and into focusing on your dog’s presence and weight.
Alerting to or interrupting nervous or destructive behaviors- This is something I personally find the most difficult to let my dog help me with. She can tell me over and over that I am nervous, until I’ve ignored her enough that I’ve slipped into an anxiety attack and have to resort to DPT or medication as a form of calming myself. If your dog is trained to let you know when your anxiety/dissociation/depression/anger etc. threshold is passed capacity, you MUST be consciously able to heed their warnings and take appropriate actions. If you don’t or are not able, this task is basically useless and isn’t helping you manage your symptoms. The same goes for interrupting destructive behaviors. After your dog have alerted you to, or interrupted a destructive behavior, you really need to be able to sit there and allow yourself to be conscious of that behavior and make an effort to avoid it or stop it. Locking your dog in another room in order to get them to stop interrupting you is not an option. A good task to follow up the interruption of a destructive behavior is DPT or another grounding/calming exercise, like having the dog lick you. You can also make a point to actively engage with your dog via grooming, play, or cuddling when a behavior has been interrupted. The dog can interrupt you all day, but if you don’t make an effort to redirect your energies to something positive and constructive, these interruptions are not likely to help much in the long term. Think of interruptions in dog training terms. They should be a form of counter conditioning. If you want your dog to not do something, you don’t just tell them not to do it over and over again. You tell them not to do it, and then reward them for offering you with the correct behavior. Think of yourself the same way. Let your dog interrupt your negative behavior, and then come up with some way to reward yourself for ending the behavior.
Waking handler from a nightmare or for an alarm- Having a dog wake you from nightmares works in a similar way to having a dog break through dissociative/anxious etc. episodes. Once the dog has interrupted a nightmare, you need to do something in order to make yourself comfortable again…. Examples might be to ask your dog to snuggle with you, to drink some water, to have your dog to some DPT, wash your face, play with some aroma therapy… Anything that will help you come back to a better mind space. Having your dog wake you in the morning is a little different. When your dog is trained to wake you up at a certain time, or wake you after an alarm goes off, you need to consciously allow yourself to accept your dog’s help and get out of bed. In this circumstance, the dog is acting essentially like an alarm… just a more persistent one. Your dog may be super persistent in getting you out of bed, but you still need to consciously say “Alright, dog says time to get up! Then it’s time to get up!”
Please, help your dog do their job, let them help you. It will help you manage your symptoms more and it may even help you recover in the long term. These great critters are here not only to mitigate our symptoms, but hopefully to help us recover, at least a little bit, in the long term. A psychiatric service dog really cannot help you properly if you are not willing to, in some way, shape or form, help yourself.
I needed to hear this. Thank you so much!!!
So I’ve been so bad about training lately. I think it’s because I’m not really getting any support. Like my mom told me she doubts Basil can become a SD. And I am having such a hard time teaching our next step: heeling. And I’m really worried that I won’t be able to teach him to act right in public, and not bark at other dogs and just generally get so excited. Ugh.
What to Do When School Gets Hard (for the first time)
Total honesty time: I was a slacker in high school. I don’t mean that in the sense that I got bad grades, or that I didn’t do extracurriculars. I mean that in the sense that I was the kid who got good grades without having to try, so I never did. Try, that is. This meant that when I got to college, I got a surprise: professors want you to actually study! Like, with the textbook and everything! Needless to say, I had a rough time figuring out how to do this “studying” thing, and I know I’m probably not alone in this boat. The good thing is, I’ve figured this out, for the most part, so now you can learn from my mistakes.
Assume every class is going to be your hardest, going in. The day you don’t assume you’re going to have to put in five hours minimum studying for the first real test in a class is the day you will really regret. Until you get a feel for a certain professor, treat it like it’s super hard.
Schedule in studying time and STICK WITH IT. DO THIS. Or else you will end up like me, making friends with the other lone person who inhabits the study lounge at 1 am. Don’t be me, guys.
Never underestimate the power of teaching others. Seriously, I definitely have kinda taken advantage of my classmates, because I’m the person who tries to explain stuff and writes out the impromptu study guides. By teaching them, though, I’m actually prepping MYSELF to wreck the curve. Basically, once you know it well enough to explain it to others, you’re golden.
Do ALL the readings. The professor that assigns the most readings is also the professor who expects you to have learned the most from them, in my experience. Also, don’t just highlight stuff: write important points that you would want to highlight in your notes. Highlighting is just coloring for grownups - it’s fine, but it’s not going to help you learn. It’s just going to catch your eye later.
Don’t judge a professor’s tests by their lecture style. Imagine: a sweet little 5 foot nothing professor, dressed to the nines every day and super kind to everyone. My professor who fits this description causes about a third of her students to retake her classes every year. Bigshot business guy with a ridiculously high consulting rate and a weird robe he always wears? 98% pass his classes. Focus on the material, not the prof.
Save your homework assignments. It turns out that in college, homework is 95% of the times something that you can actually study from. Do it, do it well, then hang on to it.
Know your preferred study habitats. Do you like to study around a lot of people or by yourself? Are windows a distraction or a necessity? Is the library great or just too far away to bother with? Keep an eye on when you study best and then try to replicate it later.
Get rid of unnecessary distractions. Turn off your phone. Notifications are Bad for concentration. Close your email unless you absolutely need it. Have a drink and someone to nibble on if you use that as an excuse to avoid studying. Maybe avoid studying with that one person if you are distracted by existing near them.
Plan out regular breaks. Tell yourself every half hour you can go on Facebook, or wander down the hall and talk to someone, or read a chapter of that thing you’ve been working on. Just have something planned out that you can actively work towards. Not just having an abyss of time to fill with studying can be really useful.
As for studying itself:
Notecards, re-writing notes in a different format, having someone quiz you, making study guides, and writing practice essays about stuff have all been super useful for me in some respect or another.
Other studying help:
Seven
Study
Moods
Rain generator
Coffee shop chatter
How to Study
How to Study pt. II
Bullet journal guide
You’ve got this. We can study together.
anyway on the topic a list of tasks i would like to train the future bub
Keep reading
So I was looking on Basil’s papers and apparently he isn’t a purebred, he’s actually mixed with a smooth collie so that’s cool. Smooth collie is the top photo, and smooth fox terrier is the bottom.
Dog Training Central
Positively
Fenzi Dog Sports
PetPlace
PetCareRx
Dog Channel
Basil and his best friend/boyfriend Mr.Bean. Such a cute couple 💜
Day 10
Today wasn't awesome, we didn't really make any strides and he was being stubborn especially about sitting on cold ground 🙄 I kind of think that it may have been me being impatient with him. Maybe tomorrow we'll just go a little slower and try some building up.
I literally left for 5 minutes and he gets so excited every time I come back
Guy Makes Adorable Pug His Valentine in a Quirky Couples Photo Shoot
This has nothing to do with dog training or service dogs but look at it!
So I always say my cat (Bean) looks like he has socks on but today I come home from training with Basil and he had gotten into the fireplace and all over his paws and chest is black soot. And now it looks like he has on dirty socks.
Sometimes I just stare at Basil and start crying because I love him so much and there are very few people I don’t become extremely anxious around and before I got him I would just lay in my bed and feel so sad because anxiety is so freaking isolating but he allows me to be a normal person
I have no concept of the pain scale, like…I just realized that last week I said I was in especially awful hip pain and when my pt asked to rate it I said “3”. And then this week I said I felt a lot better than last week and when she asked me to rate it I said “3”. I really don’t know what the numbers are supposed to be. I know it’s supposed to be out of ten but like. I think I rate the pain by what time of the day it is. Like “i will rate the pain I’m in at a 5 at the end of the day, so compared to what my pain level will be later, what I’m feeling right now is a 3.” I also think i rate in overall pain rather than specific pain? Like, systemically I’m at a five. Some parts will be worse or better but i just rate it all at five because that’s the average
Here’s a pain scale that actually makes sense.
MUCH better than those stupid smile faces.
I reblogged this because it can be super useful for anxiety if you replace “pain” with “anxiety” and personally, I add 2 more levels on top for minor panic attacks and major attacks
Day 9
Today was a really good training day! First off, I introduced the prong collar. I made sure to fit it right and all that then we took a short walk using it and oh my god my back actually didn’t ache like it usually does after a walk with him when he’s pulling like a maniac. He pretty much stayed by me and he payed so much more attention to me, it’s a miracle. And every time I could tell he was making an effort to not pull and was looking back at me I gave him a treat. I’m so glad I decided on the prong collar. Today we also work on his stay, specifically getting in and out of the car and the front door and he has improved significantly. Like, for example, I could stand completely out of the car, while he was in a sit-stay in the passenger seat and he didn’t move until I released him (he did this 3 times!). I’m so proud of my little guy!
edit: later we took another prong-collar walk and I also tested his skills on the sidewalk next to a pretty busy street and he actually sits on hard ground now and he stays when I walk in a circle around him. :)
To everyone who is feeling discouraged in their training:
you are doing a good job
your dog will still love you even if you have an off training day
sometimes your dog will not perform the commands you know they know, that’s okay, tomorrow’s a new day
if you screw up, you can fix it, dogs are adaptable
your dog is smart, they will learn what they need even if it takes months
training takes a long time, that’s okay
your hard work will pay off
it’s okay to take a day, a few days, or even a week off
your dog won’t give up on you, as long as you don’t give up on them
the internet is a wonderful thing, use it to help you (especially youtube)
if all else fails, ask your local reputable professional trainer
