Help With Informal Assistance Dog Training

[RuralPug]

I recently had a cochlear implant and have joined a cochlear implant forum (as you do!) . One lady on that forum has commented that she has a little dog that has trained itself to be a hearing assistance dog, but which doesn't quite understand that she can now hear (at least when she has her processor on). She was wondering about what she could do to retrain her dog, and train her new puppy that is coming soon.

Here is the relevant part of her post:

I know that the lions people take hearing dogs between about 18 months and 3 years, and find them in the RSPCA and other places. What I would like to know is if anyone has heard of any information available about training your own dog.....I would love to train Gypsy properly and she is intelligent, and will learn anything if it means she gets smackos for a treat.... but I would love to refine her antics to suit my hearing needs.

I am also getting a new puppy soon, and would have the opportunity to train it from scratch, so would be keen to follow through with this.

Any information would be very interesting.

The problem is that she lives rurally (in the northern Grampians, Victoria) and so access to training classes & etc would be extremely limited. Any coaching would really need to be by phone or email I imagine.

Is there perhaps a good book or DVD that could be recommended to her or is there anyone with experience in assistance dog training that would be prepared to distance coach her? Is that even feasible? I am airing my ignorance for the world to see LOL!

I am not sure that she has had ANY experience in training at all even at the puppy school level, which of course may be a problem.

I will pass on any suggestions.

[Jigsaw]

There are several Yahoo groups for service dog training. Some for owner trained dogs. If you go to the Yahoo site and search for assistance dogs a list comes up. I'm not sure if they would be able to be specifically helpful or not but might be worth looking at if your friend has the internet.

DVD here http://www.woofandwordpress.com/

again I don't know it's contents.

YouTube

and

these videos have captions.

Hope this is of some help!

[Paul Bright]

First of all, that is one amazing dog! :D Second, there are a lot of training methods you can use to train your dog successfully. You don't have to attend actual classes as everything may be taught using the internet and through videos. Clicker training method is a simple and effective way to train your dog and puppy. It uses positive reinforcement methods to get good behavior from your dog/s.

It's fairly easy and since you already have a dog who is excited about treats, then clicker training is the best training method for you. Let's hope your puppy likes treats as well. If you do find a treat they absolutely adore, use those exclusively for training to keep them excited

[RuralPug]

WOW! Jigsaw, thank you! :D I wish this site had a "thank you" button for great answers!

I loved those videos and the great suggestions and I am sure that she will too!

Also thank you Paul, I will pass on your hint about special training treats.