PonderEthereal

Cody is well on his way where his training is concerned. At home has ironically been the biggest hurdle. He’s so naturally protective that he kinda wants to bully right up to the top of the pecking order when people come by. However, to that very protective end, his next service dog task wasn’t quite as difficult to train.

PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder can be caused by any number of traumas and among other symptoms, leaves the person feeling unsafe or on edge much of the time. One of my big safety concerns has always been keeping the house safe. So it made sense that, when caused by an event occurring in my home, entering the house would become a trigger.

Cody has been trained to ‘go check’ when we enter the house. He waits for permission to go in. I let him off lead and tell him…

Cody has been doing wonderfully as a service dog. I take him with me almost everywhere I go now and it’s absolutely SO MUCH EASIER to go out with him. It makes getting out less of a source of anxiety.

A month ago, I would avoid going to the bank. Today, I’m going with nary a second thought. yesterday, we needed hamburger buns in the middle of the day, a time that I stay clear of stores, and I took Cody and got through it great!

I still can’t take him anywhere with shiny floors because it freaks him out but for short trips to a place with shiny floors, he can sit in the car. I saw a great dog whisperer episode that gave some REALLY great tips and I realize how I reinforced the shiny floor behavior now. I’m going to try to arrange an after hours training session…

You’ve cycled your tank and so you’re ready to add a few more fish. How many fish can you add to your aquarium? How soon? In what order? The answer is, err on the side of caution. A mistake could be fatal to your fish.

How many Fish Can I have in my aquarium?

The number of fish you can have depends upon the size tank you have. It’s less about how many bodies you can cram into your tank and more about how much waste your tank can reasonably handle. Too many fish causes ammonia levels to remain too high and could kill your fish.

There are two rules that people often quote when stocking a tank - 1 inch of fish for every gallon of water or 1 inch of fish per every 12 square inches of surface space. These are great guidelines - but not great rules if left at face value.…

In Cycling the Tank, I covered HOW to cycle a tank and what it means and how to gauge the process. Here is what my tank cycle looked like for a 30 gallon tank.

I left out the days where there was no change. There were fluctuation sin my readings on some days which over all amounted to nothing and which can probably be chalked up to inaccurate measurements.

Day 1 :

Day 2 : added one fish
Day 4 : still no change - added a second fish to tip the balance
Day 7 : The ammonia rose to a 1 - and we’re off!
Day 9 : The ammonia rose to 1.5 and we look like this :

Day 11 : The ammonia rose to 2
Day 12 : The ammonia was holding steady at 2 and 2 is a pretty high amount. I want the fish to live so I added 3 quarts of water to top…

There is no central registry of service dogs. There is no company or organization or government department that you are required to register your service dog with. That said, it is polite and safe to provide your service dog with some form of public identification.

There are several companies and organizations who offer you an identification kit and ‘registration’ with their company or organization for a few hundred dollars. There are also websites who will sell you customized identification cards for your dog for anywhere from $10 to $20 apiece, with shipping. It’s tempting to think that these offer some sort of validity to the dog and that is what you are purchasing… but it doesn’t and you aren’t.

In fact, you can very easily make your OWN identification for your service dog, make it look exactly like you want it to look, make it say what you want it…

If you are considering your dog a ‘Service Dog in Training’, before you start any training, you will need to find a reliable way to log the training you do. If your dog’s status is ever called into question, having this log will prove the training regimen. Each time you do training, note the date and time and what you worked on.

Before your dog can learn more complex tasks, s/he needs the basics; sit, down, stay, come, walk on a leash, socialization with people and dogs and being accustomed to daily life outside the home (cars, noises etc). These basic tasks will facilitate success in later training. I recommend following the AKC Canine Good Citizenship testing guidelines for basic obedience as these were created to define a dog who is ‘well behaved’ and well socialized.

As for HOW you train your dog, there are as many philosophies as there are trainers.…

Previously : Deciding if a Service Dog is a Good Fit - And How

Different dog breeds have different temperaments and different dogs have different personalities. The dog you choose will be your constant companion for the next seven to ten years, at least. If you keep him or her as a companion after his/her service is over, even longer.

1) Now that you’ve got the list of tasks you need a dog for, do a once over disqualification or prequalification of particular types of dogs. Does anything in particular stick out about the task list that might speak to particular requirements in the dog? For instance, if this dog will continuously herd an autistic child back to home turf, a herding breed might be a good fit. If this dog will perform smelling tasks, a hound or other tracking dog might be a good fit. Sometimes it’s just common sense. If you…

Today, I took Cody on our first outing in public. We started with Walmart. I was a little nervous approaching the front door but Walmart staff were very respectful and I wasn’t challenged. Then Tim took off in the other direction, I got nervous and Cody got nervous. We rested for a moment and then plodded onward.

Cody was very well behaved. He focused on navigating around things, he ignored people, for the most part and ignored the stuff on the shelves and wasn’t the least bit frightened of shopping carts. And then the puddle of water happened. I didn’t see it, Cody stepped in it and his feet went out from under him and he panicked. He laid there for a long while, me comforting him before he braved it again and then he tried to do it on his toes. Have you ever seen a dog walk on it’s…

Usually, if a service trains your dog, they purchase and provide you with a vest (as well they should, for the amount they charge!). I am training my own service dog. I could purchase a vest - but why spend money on one if I don’t have to? So I made it myself.

The total cost of this DIY Service dog vest project is under $10. I’m not very good at sewing and did it by hand and it took me two hours. Someone who is good at sewing or uses a machine could cut the time considerably as well as the cost, as you are likely to have needles and such already. The outcome is a very professional looking vest.

This process is written for the smart (in retrospect, it’s written like an engineer might write a cooking recipe) but sewing inept. :) My recommendations and estimates are for an 85…

You must have a diagnosed disability to use a service dog. Once that is established, the first, maybe obvious step, in this whole process is deciding whether or not a service dog is a good fit. You can do that by giving some thought to what a service dog is capable of and whether that would make an improvement to your quality of life.

Do you Qualify For a Service Animal?

To use a service animal legally, you must have a diagnosed disability. The Justice Department has this to say about qualifying disabilities under the ADA :

To be protected by the ADA, one must have a disability or have a relationship or association with an individual with a disability. An individual with a disability is defined by the ADA as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who…