#service dog problems

[asdpawprint]

Something I don't often see mentioned about the process of training your own service dog is the period of time where the dog is actively making symptoms worse instead of helping.

I started with a mature adult dog with decent obedience, and still there were several months where he made everything worse every time we left the house. In order to be a good trainer for him, I had to abandon my prior strategy of just shutting down and following my parents through the store. I had to actually be conscious and aware of my surroundings and navigate on my own and give my dog feedback and guidance, and he didn't know how to help me yet. His training wasn't proofed to those distractions yet.

At first, having my dog with me eliminated my existing coping strategies and offered nothing to replace them with. Over time, as his training progressed, he gradually started becoming helpful. That took months even without the challenges of baby puppy stages and teenage stages and general lack of maturity.

Owner training a service dog is HARD, not just because of the time, effort, and skill required. It's also hard because the dog doesn't become helpful until towards the end of the "in training" years, and until then, it's usually the opposite of helpful.

[mandana-the-service-pup]

We have the car back and just got home from Mandanas aquapuncture appointment. She did well. Her back is still tender so at one point she wanted to stop, so we let her. When I asked if she wanted to try again she enthusiastically agreed and held still for the rest of the injections.

I discussed her back problem with the vet and here’s what we know. Mandana has arthritis in her spine (spondylosis). It’s only in one spot which indicates it was most likely her spine trying to stabilize itself after an injury. It was on her 2 year X-rays that the other vet missed, so it had to have happened when she was a puppy or adolescent because it takes some time for the calcification to develop. When I picked her up the breeder said she had her with an adolescent Malinois but had to separate them because the bigger dog was too rough with her. The vet said it’s possible the older dog was playing and came down on her back causing the injury which later developed arthritis.

This video was taken a few days after we brought her home. You can see how arched and tight her back is. I had her evaluated by a vet and asked about some of her behaviors that seemed off. I told him that she has been running and then falling over forward an unusual amount. More than I’ve seen other puppies do, but he assured me she was fine and was a normal healthy puppy.

Besides the breeder reported incident, there are a few possibilities of when it could have happened.

As a puppy, she jumped off some playground equipment as I was walking with her down the stairs. I watched her land shoulder first into the loose mulch and kept a close eye on her but she never showed any limping or soreness after that.

As an older puppy, her longline got caught on the tree when she got the zoomies and when she reached the end it was a hard stop. She was wearing a well fitted harness and didn’t show signs of injury afterwards.

As an adolescent we were playing in the snow and she unexpectedly jumped into the air. When she landed her feet came out from under her. She did seem sore after that. If I asked her to trot she had a barely noticeable limp on one side. It was gone within a day and that was just a couple of months before her X-ray.

All of those things make me cringe. Despite my best efforts, accidents happened. I always tried to follow up with the best care possible and I learned how to better predict her behavior and prevent stuff like that from happening. I would hate to think this lifelong injury is from something I did wrong but in truth it could have been.

The good thing is that the vet doesn’t think she has the progressive genetic version of this Although it’s still possible she could be genetically predisposed to developing it after injury. Most likely she won’t get worse until she starts to age and at that point it’s normal for most dogs to develop arthritis. Surgery is not an option. The only thing we can do is what we’ve been doing:

Rehab her back.

Build up the muscles in her top line through gradual conditioning exercises.

Choose activities she enjoys and if she shows signs of soreness lessen the intensity until she is comfortable.

Watch for any changes that might indicate the arthritis is progressing.

She will never do heavy mobility. She can pick up items for me and maybe on good days she can close doors and turn off lights but I will never ask her to brace and I will never ask her to do forward momentum. Those are two tasks I really needed but it was always a possibility she wouldn’t be able to do heavy mobility work and that’s ok. She is an amazing medical alert service dog (she even did a heart rate alert while she was getting aquapuncture done this morning!) My main concern right now is that she is comfortable traveling and doing public access outings.

I also want to make sure she is stable enough to exercise so we can build up her muscles and keep weight off. I don’t think she will ever be able to do joring but maybe running tandem with me on a bike is something we could work towards. She certainly has the leash skills for it and it’s something she seems to enjoy. In the future we will probably trade in her carpetmill for a slatmill so she can exercise without the added resistance. If she’s comfortable traveling I could take her to the lake for swimming during week days.

There are so many things we can do together. Her lifespan is short. I want to make her time with me enjoyable. Adventures without pain afterwards. And who knows, maybe when things are all said and done we’ll have a little prospect puppy tagging along and learning how awesome it is to be a service dog.

[mikenewtonhateblog]

Listen, people working in public service, I feel for you so much right now but I’m sick of y’all just being assholes about my service dog for no reason. He’s been inside a YEAR and is having to relearn a few things, so yeah he did try to steal a stuffed animal (which I bought for him), but that doesn’t give you the right to start grilling me on if he’s a real service dog or not and then hit me with “well I’ve been watching him and he’s really not listening to you, pulling you around the store like that.”

HE GUIDES ME, HE KNOWS THE ROUTE TO THE PHARMACY AND THAT ON HIS WAY BACK WE STOP IN THE DOG ISLE, THEN CHECK OUT, AND THAT MEANS “OH BOY I GET TREATS IN THE CAR!!!”

Also if one more white woman my age or older (especially 35-55) comes out of NOWHERE to touch him, makes kissy noises at him, or treats me like google about owning a service dog I’m getting a spray bottle and spraying them. I know he’s cute and a big baby but he also has NEON REFLECTIVE PATCHES THAT SAY DO NOT PET, I’M BEGGING YOU TO READ!!!!!!!!!

[booksandbrainsandsoftthings]

Had a 15 minute discussion with the store manager of my local Walmart today. I don't usually bother reporting anything, but today there were 2 ESA in carts and an off leash large white dog wandering around the store and I didn't feel safe with my SD.

Turns out their corporate HR forbids anyone but management from even ASKING IF A DOG IS A SERVICE DOG.

And then they just have to accept it if a person says yes unless the animal is reported as being aggressive.

Their company HR decided this and passed it down as company law without consulting the company legal department. The MANAGER did not know there was the follow up question of "what work does the animal perform?" That they are LEGALLY ALLOWED TO ASK.

Corporate is so scared of getting sued by some Karen and her aggressive purse dog, that have disregarded federal and state laws, limited the legal power of their employees to question and remove problem dogs, and happily endanger disabled people to avoid a court case that the ADA would help them get tossed out anyway.

Walmart corporate needs to step the fuck up and actually follow the federal laws regarding public access for service animals.

[sevdoesnotexist]

She was just asking an honest question. She absolutely wants to respect the disabled persons dog. You don’t have to continue and believe that she would purposefully distract the dog for her own benefit. I’ve known her all my life and she’s had some pretty fucked up shit happen to her. She understands now, don’t keep fucking pushing it jackass. We’re trying to respect your feelings, you don’t need to put people down for learning.

I never put anyone down, if you're talking about this post what I said boils down to "treat a service dog just like any other assistive devices, ignore it in all situations" but really I'm damn fucking TIRED of abled people's shitty attitude nobody was putting down anyone for trying to learn but if y'all were real allies you wouldn't be pulling the guilt trip "you hurt my feelings by being a disabled person and not catering to my sensitive ego" shit like damn

we're treated so crappy by everyone around us save for a select few and if you can't understand why answering the same questions over and over and over again without actually being listened to would make disabled people a little "rude" when they answer the same question for the billionth time then you don't want to learn you don't want to grow what you want is to be seen as woke and an activist.

It's not a fucking joke when we say distracting a service dog for ANY reason puts their handler is fucking danger. You could be the reason their dog misses signs of a seizure and their owner falls and bashes their head open, you could be the one who distracts a person's service animal and they walk into traffic because they've disassociated and aren't able to be present enough to realize they're walking into traffic, you could be the reason a service dog isn't able to sooth their owner during an autistic meltdown.

I get it dogs are cute but when that dog is wearing a service vet, it's not a dog anymore, it's a highly specialized assistive device that can't do it's fucking job if you distract it what we're trying to say is you're putting our lives in danger because you see a cute doggie and don't think about anything else, and all we get after explaining this time and time again is either nasty anons calling you rude or people trying to come up with reasons why they CAN touch the doggo, actually.

It's performative bullshit that won't get you anywhere. Listen to disabled people and understand, learn to live with your discomfort and get the fuck out of my inbox until you can act like a real ally and a decent fucking person

[pinkandbluespottedpandapaws]

Tonights been absolutely horrible

Had to throw out ALL of Ravens food and sanitize her food bin & everything

If someone could help us out a bit so i can try to replace her food PLEASE

Linking my paypal below

God this fucking nights gone straight to shit 😭

Pay H. Gustafson using PayPal.Me

Go to paypal.me/HGustafson and type in the amount. Since it’s PayPal, it's easy and secure. Don’t have a PayPal account? No worries.

[shortstack-21]

Long post! Things I wish I knew before going through the organization I choose for a service dog:

You can’t choose your dog or give them a name

I don’t even own my own service dog and they could take her away at any time if I seem unfit to handle them. I was told if my girl didn’t lose weight they could take her away. (My uncle who is no longer living with us was feeding her ppl food when we weren’t watching so I rushed her to the vet when she started gaining weight because I thought something was wrong but it was my dumb ass uncle)

The org I went through uses prong collars incorrectly and can’t size them properly. I learned this through having friends with service dogs and a trainer who happens to be a really good friend.

You aren’t allowed to change equipment such as vests or training aids.

They didn’t understand the difference between E-collars and Shock collars so they banned them saying they were abuse even though the training tools they use can cause harm when used improperly which they were doing.

The “community” and online presence is extremely toxic and wish to end owner trained service dogs even though the people I met had dogs that were better trained than my program dog.

My dog was supposed to be a therapy dog but they had to get her through the program and matched her with me. I had no choice but I wouldn’t have it any other way now. But looking back she should have never graduated from the program. She was dog reactive, going through a fear period, and could barely hold a heel next to my chair. (We got through it and now we can hold a heel and continue walking even as we pass another dog in public)

My girl is afraid of loud noises such as fire alarms, fireworks, and thunder which in their list of being unfit for sd work is an automatic fail in the program and they are removed from the program.

My girl has chronic ear infections (which is now under control due to medication) and I was not informed until they finally sent her records to my vet.

They don’t allow any mobility tasks what so ever even though the vet I have knew I needed them (they take care of all our other pets) said my girl would be perfect for mobility tasks because her joints are perfect.

Speaking of which I worry for their dogs health due to an alarming conversation between them and my vet when discussing my girl’s weight management plan. They wanted me to feed a 52 lbs active Labrador only two cups of the weight loss food a day. My vet flipped out on me when I told her and she sent them a lengthy email stating that they would be starving her to lose weight faster. They changed their tone and now they never send me any emails regarding her health. If I didn’t advocate for my girl and discuss it with my vet they would have me making her lose weight the wrong way.

There is so much more I could add. I do know, that when my girl retires I am NEVER going back to them. I will be owner training and will advise everyone I know to never go with them unless absolutely necessary.

Honestly, if they knew I was posting this I bet they would take my girl away from me because they are that petty. I understand those who don’t have the time or money to train their own SD but if I knew all this before going through with it I wouldn’t support it. I understand they do good things for people who can’t train a dog themselves and hope they continue that. They just handed me a dog that should not have graduated and it took a year to train her on how to work through fear and dog reactivity (by reactivity it was excitement not aggression). I wouldn’t have it any other way though because she is my everything and gave me independence.

[charlietheherodog]

People need to control their kids. Was just walking through Walmart and this little girl runs up and grabs my service dog’s face. If it was any other dog this kid would have gotten bitten. SMH