Dogs helping Autistic kids find their way....the Candy video

Watch this CBS news clip of a little boy with Asperperger's syndrome, a form of Autism, and his Golden Retriever service dog Candy running agility. In the three years of blogging here at A Dog's Life, I have to say, this is my favorite dog clip of all time. Maybe even ever!

Many of you tell me that you never watch the movies on blogs or emails. If you have a slow computer or a slow connection, be sure to check this out somewhere else. It is worth it.

While there is no specific scientific proof that dogs help kids with autism (yet!), more and more families report that dogs do in fact help their autistic children. I have seen it personally many times over.

Last last year I blogged my Lab client Hunter, and his little autistic boy Merrill. Many of you have been asking me how they are doing. They are doing well, but due to time constraints, the family was not able to keep commuting the three plus hours to class round trip.I have not seen them since the last blog, although we do continue to communicate via email. My work with Hunter has shown me just how difficult it is for families with young kids to carry out the type of training that an Autism assist dog needs. Not that it isn't possible to train your own dog, but certainly it is much more difficult.

More and more I find myself working with families with autistic kids. This should come as no suprise because 1 in every 166 kids is affected. Some families want nice pets and others are hoping that their dog has what it takes to be a service dog.

Candy the dog in the clip above was trained by North Star Foundation in Connecticut. Click here to visit North Star's web site. It looks like they are doing fantastic work over there.

I wrote the Executive Director, Patty Dobbs Gross, and told her of my intention to blog Candy and asked her if she had a quote to add.

Did she ever!

I have included the entire word document that she sent me because while she talks specifically about her program, she also gives a wonderful explanation about what is involved in training an Autism assist dog and offers help to families. Patty has also asked me to work with one of their dogs that is being placed in Maine this summer, and I will be honored to do so.

We Help Children Find Their Way
by Patty Dobbs Gross

North Star Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to place assistance dogs with children who face challenges. To date we have helped over seventy-five families around the country to meet their children's social, emotional and educational goals through the use of well-bred and trained North Star dogs.

Over half the children we serve are on the autism spectrum, although we also place North Star dogs with children who face a serious illness or who have suffered a loss. We use a different model of placement than the traditional assistance dog model that most people are familiar with, and this is due to the different roles that our dogs play. While most Seeing Eye or Wheelchair dogs need to have a multitude of trained skills, such as turning on or off light switches and picking up dropped items, our dogs tend to have less technical tasks such as comforting a child through a tantrum. Often this comfort doesn’t come from a task to be trained, but from the dog’s relaxed presence and focused attention.

Hunter -now with CGC! update # 8

Follow the progress of Hunter, an 11 month old lab in training to be a Service Dog for a 4 year old Autistic boy.

A big huge YOOOOO HOOOOO!!!! goes out to Dagny and Hunter for passing the AKC Canine Good Citizen test Monday night.
How's that for fast tracking?
Dagny has had him for only 7 weeks and they weren't even in the advanced class. Dagny has been coming to the 6 week basic class that also graduated on Monday, and then she has been staying for all three of my training sessions- mostly on the sidelines just chilling out. This has given us time to talk about our training plans and work on Hunter's all important long down.

Hunter is shown here with both his certificate of graduation from Gooddogz Training, and his Canine Good Citizen certificate from the American Kennel Club earned back to back on the same night.

Mom's head was cut off per Mom's request.

As a graduation gift, Hunter received a Hi Q toy from the inventor who lives in Portland and read my blogs about him. The Hi Q is one on my new favorite dog toys .
Look for a full review of the Hi Q toy on Friday.

Hunter update 7-learning to push and a trip to Walmart

Merrill and Hunter at Walmart
Photo by Dagny

Follow the progress of Hunter, an 11 month old lab in training to be a Service Dog for a 4 year old Autistic boy.

So many of you have asked me what I thought Hunter's chances were of becoming Merrill's service dog.
My answer: he already is!
Dagny (Mom) reported that Merrill was noticeably more anxious and upset when Hunter spent a week training at my house. Even though Hunter had been in their home for less than 1 month, he has already become an integral part of Merrill's day to day routine and especially, the all important bed time ritual.

At bedtime, Merrill drifts off to sleep in a chair. He wakes disoriented after a very short while and goes to the floor, where Hunter is sleeping at his feet. He then he hugs pushes, and handles Hunter quite roughly, then goes straight to his bed.
Hunter, to his credit, loves this.
Now to you and I that may not seem like a lot, but to the family, this new bed time routine, has already brought a huge amount of relief and peace. Bedtimes rituals with young kids can be difficult as it is, but having an autistic child makes it all the harder. Merrill is the youngest of four children and he has another sibling with Asbergers syndrome, another form of autism.

Since my last post about Hunter, the dog has come to class twice and done really well both nights. Dagny stayed for several hours and last week, and Hunter did every thing my advanced class did. But best of all, he is doing incredibly well on just plain chilling out. Hunter is a far stretch far from your typical young lab and I am thankful to his breeder.

This picture was taken in class two weeks ago. You can see the dog is pushing his head on Dagny's lap. We hit on this quite by accident, when he basically was just begging for treats. Dagny had the good sense to start to teach the command "push" on cue. This simple act of Hunter resting his head in the boy's lap will help Merrill to stay focused. How cool is that? The dog to his credit, picked it up in a flash.

Dagny took Merrill and Hunter to Walmart not long ago and she told me that for the first time ever, Merrill didn't overload and she got to finish what she was doing without Merrill having a melt down. Dagny reports that Merrill is doing a great job holding on to the tabs on the service dog vest while walking in public. She told me a remarkable story about how Merrill, when he would start to feel overwhelmed in the store, draped himself over the dog for a few minutes, got grounded and then continued on as if nothing happened. Never before on a trip to Walmart had Merrill remained calm for the entire shop and there have been times, she had to leave before accomplishing what she came for. Dagney told me that when she got to the car she was so grateful for Hunter's help she gave him nearly a whole bag of treats that she had just purchased for him, and cried. She sat in her car hugging the dog and crying and feeding him and telling him how wonderful he is. Hunter is one special dog. We only JUST started to teach to stand and brace, and he doesn't even know it yet, but the dog just stood there with a small boy draped across his back helping the boy to filter out all the overwhelming stimulus he was being bombarded with. The Walmart story of course made me well up with tears. You?
Good Dog Hunter!

Merrill has a blog, Merrills Fund. Check it out and send them a donation! They can sure use it. I have given them a very deep discount because I feel what we are doing is very important, but I am not free,and neither is the day to day expenses of this dog or a special needs child.

Hunter's Day 6--Sunday- the day of rest--- well not exactly

Follow the progress of Hunter, an 11 month old lab in training to be a Service Dog for a 4 year old Autisitic boy.

First thing yesterday morning Hunter, the big sweet lug of a dog, nearly did me in. I mean I thought my number was up! He and Finney were playing in the house and in a spilt second, things between them escalated. I think there was some degree of boy posturing going on, and once again I was surprised to see Finn in control. Hunter ducked up onto the couch to get away and then FLEW from the large couch across to the love seat where I was laying down. He soared about 6 feet across and landed all 80 pounds plus, front feet first on my stomach ---direct hit to the spot where I had stomach surgery two summers ago for an incarcerated hernia. In hindsight, my near white out reaction was more mental than physical but it took me several minutes to realize that I wasn't going to need to call 911. Hunter stopped immediately and went to the furthest corner of the house and waited with his head hung for me to come and crate him.
That little incident took a lot out of me, not being as young as I used to be an all.

Hunter got worked the least Sunday due in part to above incident and because I had several private sessions and also drove to Massachusetts in the afternoon to pick up a new foster dog. Due to liability issues with myself and the rescue, I will not be blogging the foster dog, but he may get a mention here and there. Hunter got only one on leash training session after dinner Sunday night. Just like any young dog, his attention span was "limited" shall we shall in the beginning of the walk, but within about 10 minutes, he was back on track. I have started to teach him the word "over" for times just before he is about to bang into my knee. To soon to tell, but it seemed like he "got it". Interesting to note that when I gave him a longer lead he walked naturally with a back and forth swagger. I thought he was bumping me to be close to me, but it may just have to do with his lack of body awareness and his overall young dog disjointedness. He may just have no idea where his feet are.

Hunter Day 5 - Shaws

Follow the progress of Hunter, an 11 month old lab in training to be a Service Dog for a 4 year old Autisitic boy.

In blogging the day to day training of Hunter, a training job that I consider one of the most important I have ever taken on, in the back of my mind, I am constantly thinking about my blogging angle throughout the day. I have read on line, that thinking about how you will blog an event as it is happening is a one of the many signs of blogging addiction. You almost start to live life in the "blog person". When something happens to us bloggers, we start to think about how we will write about it. The more we blog, the more we think of things in the "blog person".

My point is this. Knowing that what I do with this dog will be read and scrutinized by many has made me very conscious of what I do and where we should be in regards to a training plan. So far my goals have pretty much been met, but Hunter is not ready to move on and I think he will need to continue to work on obedience, and just continue to get out and about ignoring people and pets for some time to come.

I would love to blog aggression cases that I see, especially some of the jobs where I have utilized Finney's help, but you can understand that in our litigious society, people are reluctant to have a written record of such a thing and I have been reluctant to even ask.

Saturday I took Hunter to Shaw's Supermarket for my big weekly food shop and a huge heaping of training. People were very aware that the dog was working and no one tried to pat him although he did have a lot of admirers and everyone who inquired was shocked that he was only 11 months old. He was very calm and well behaved. I find it odd that of all places it was the people in a petstore who had no idea what a working dog did. Today I felt that people looked at me funny, and were probably wondering what mental or physical illness I had, and we made lots of people visibly uncomfortable.

Holding the leash on the handle of shopping cart while I pushed temporality solved the problem of Hunter bumping my leg in heel, but I was so aware that I could run over his toes that it became exhausting after a while. My kids were away for the weekend which gave me more training time today, and I couldn't help but wonder how shopping with a cart will work with Merrill along. We will need to revisit food shopping many times before we get it right I am sure. It was a lot harder than you would think even with the dog cooperating as well as he did. He took one big major air sniff in the deli department, but other than that, food was not an issue for him.
Today's lesson was to teach Hunter that people talking to him was the cue for him to watch me, and Hunter did really well.
Those Labs sure love their food don't they?

Photo credit goes to Merrill's Mom Dagny

Training Hunter day 4- mall day!

Follow the training progress of Hunter an 11 month old lab in training to be a Service Dog for a 4 year old Autisitc boy.

With no hesitation what so ever, I can safely announce that the dog behaved much better than my kids on our training excursion to the Maine Mall this morning. Maybe if I had been able to leash the youngest one and give her lots of frequent rewards, things would have been easier. Basically my kids just acted like kids, but it made me see quite clearly how impossible it would be for Dagny to successfully train the dog and watch all her kids at the same time. When I return the dog on Monday night, we will discuss having him come for more extended time with me.
In the mall, Hunter was a perfect gentleman. He went on 4 elevators and didn't so much as flinch. Hunter successfully avoided bringing in any unwanted attention with his sweet tracter beam eyes. He shopped in several stores with us and yes he did go to Victoria Secret. I had a great photo shot of him all set up in front of some foo-foo shoes and a little black lace number when I was told that they have a strict no photography policy. You will all have to suffice with a shot of Hunter outside of the store.

We had lunch in the food court and Hunter was wonderful and he got lots of clicks and treats for just chillin' out. It became clear to me that the breeder did a great job with him and that she has given him a solid foundation on which to build on.
Good boy Hunter.

Day three training Hunter

Follow the training progress of Hunter an 11 month old lab in training to be a Service Dog for a 4 year old Autisitc boy.

I have to admit that I didn't take Hunter out and about on Thursday. Most of Thursday I spent working at home and Hunter was for the most part my very sweet shadow. He took a lot of power naps near my chair, which in itself may not seem like a big deal, but with Hunter being a young lab with little training, that in and of itself is a near miracle and very encouraging. I couldn't take him to work with me last night because my training class was filled with unknown pups and I need to be hands on the first night of school.

After spending an entire day observing him, I feel that I now know him really well. He is so very sweet and oh so very goofy and completely uncoordinated. Young dogs have little body awareness and just don't come knowing where their feet are and what they are doing! I can't even count how many times Hunter bumbled and stumbled his way around my house yesterday in a vision of total disconnect. The biggest laugh my son and I have had in a while was when we were watching the Purina's Incredible Dog Challenge on TV and the fly ball dogs were barking. Poor dear Hunter went on high alert and couldn't help but bump and slide on into just about every thing in the house looking for the hidden dogs. He was slip sliding away. I do think that dogs have a sense of humor and a sense of embarrassment (ever see a dog with a bad haircut?) and Hunter looked truly befuddled when he realized the frenetic barking was coming from the idiot box. Even Charlee thought it was funny and it set her off on a wild chase her own tail excursion.

In the comment section yesterday Dagny, his human Mom asked if he rocked the crate. Well yes I have to say the kids and I have nicked named him Hunter Boomer. This dog gets so happy at the sight of us that he gives full body wags knocking his body side to side and rocking the crate while he does it. It sounds like pile driving. Hey, can't fault dog for happiness right?

While Hunter didn't to get out with his service vest on, we still worked lots of house manners and I found a dog savvy cat for a weekend training session. Thanks Dana!

This morning we are hitting the mall. I will try to post an update about that adventure later today. Currently Hunter heels while pushing on my leg and it is not only annoying, it is dangerous and he can knock someone over. So far I have tried to gently bump him back (didn't work), and then I was hit with the genius idea of having the leash attached to his gentle leader on the outside of his head, instead of the inside so I can just keep him off him. That worked really well, but not without people looking at me like I don't know what I am doing holding his leash backwards. Oh well, you gotta do what you gotta do and sometimes that means thinking outside the box and using things differently from the way they were intended.

All three kids are coming to the mall this morning and middle school son has told all his friend we are taking the dog to Hot Topic and Victoria Secret.

Photo credit goes to Merrill's Mom Dagny

Hunter's In home training day 2

Follow the training progress of Hunter an 11 month old lab in training to be an Autism Service dog for a 4 year old boy.
This training series category began yesterday.

Most visiting dogs get crated at night in my house. I don't want them chewing anything that will potentially make them very ill or worse, and I don't need the dogs posturing or fighting when my eyes are closed. Hunter however has fit in here beautifully and he slept next to my bed Tuesday night without a peep. The first night he was here, he crated fine, but one of the jobs that we hope Hunter will do is sleep in Merrill's room. For the last 4 years, Merrill has not slept in his own bed for more than a few hours, and we hope that by Hunter sleeping in Merrill's room and possibly his bed to keep him company, his parents will get some much needed R and R. Up high on our expectation list is to teach Hunter to alert the parents if Merrill gets out of bed at night, and one of our highest goals is to train him to track Merrill should he ever wander off.
Time will tell.

Hunter and Finney played in the yard for quite some time yesterday. There was one yelp, not sure by who, and then a bit of grumbling and posturing. By the time I turned my head and called to them, it was basically over. I caught a flash of Finney being the one telling the other dog off which surprised me, and I monitored them closely the rest of the day and saw nothing out of the ordinary. It is true that dogs live in the moment and are very forgiving creatures.
Hunter came to training classes at Pet Quarters with me last night wearing his service vest, and he spent nearly 4 hours there with me. For the first hour he was on a long down on and off, near the front door, and did really well.
It surprised me that when I told people they could not pat him many people asked why and when I said he was a service dog in training and that he was working, they still didn't understand. I mean I explained this over and over and over and over. In Hunter's case, he loves people and he needs to know that it is not free time when his vest is on. He is a big strong dog and could easily knock Merrill over getting up to go greet someone. A big part of Hunter's job will be to just "be" with Merrill. After an hour at the front of Pet Quarters he stopped even looking towards incoming people, and was starting to learn that other people and dogs were not there for him. Next hour was spent in a recall class where he did really well at being called away from the other dogs, and also learned to come and sit in front.
Alas all was not great in his first full day of training with me. He is still very interested in other dogs and postured (barked and lunged) at a few last night. The dog who got the biggest "woof" was an intact male. Hunter came from a good breeder who had kept him in tact to possibly be used in her breeding program, but due to illness in the family, she downsized her kennel and homed him with Merrill. Merrill's family did not castrate him. Hunter got a vasectomy.
I am not sure why a vet allowed this procedure for a service dog and Dagny-what were you thinking? This could turnout to be a major problem down the road. Hunter has a sex drive in tact.

Even with his barking incident with my little intact client, I used Hunter last night as the non reactive testing demo dog when I gave my class of 5 their AKC Canine Good Citizen test. He was the tester dog for 4 out of the 5 dogs and he was basically fine. Obviously I didn't use him for the little intact male. Hunter has bonded to me right away and he obsessed about me a little when I was testing the other dogs. In the last hour, I took his vest off and he got tons of attention from my class and the employees.

Ok, so far so good right? Wrong!
End of the night it is after 9:00 PM and I went to pick up my kids at the babysitter. I took Hunter in the house with me and he was not wearing his vest but was wearing his Gentle Leader. No sooner had the words escaped my lips that I would keep him on leash and that I wasn't sure how he was with cats when out came a kitty and off nearly went my arm. He exploded after that cat. Prey drive is a big problem for service dogs. Hunter will not be one if we can't work on it. I was exhausted and drained after the cat incident, and I crated him last night, and he slept like a log.
I need to find some dog savvy cats. Anyone got any?

To be continued.

Hunter's in home training ---Tuesday

Meet Hunter my new client and weeklong guest in my home. I am helping the family to train their own Autism Assistance Service dog.
Here is a picture of the first night that we met. Hunter is an 11 month old Lab in training to be a service dog for a 4 year old low functioning autistic boy named Merrill. We have a long road ahead of us and there is no guarantee that Hunter will be the dog that Merrill will ultimately need, but we are hopeful.

Hunter has a lovely temperament and the family has already seen immediate improvement in Merrill in the presence of his dog.

I thought I would blog a little different this week and write daily about Hunter's training progress.

So here goes---

Hunter came to his first basic group class with Mom Dagny on Monday night, where he did fine, and the dog drove home with me until next Monday's class. When I pulled in the driveway, Tucker had a collie stuffed animal in his mouth that he had clearly sucked on for the entire ride. Shh, don't tell my kids.
The family lives 1 and 1 /2 hours away from me and it is not possible to get together as often as I would like. Staying in my home will give me insight into their unique training situation, while hopefully helping them to progress quicker. This weeks group training assignment is attention, heel, automatic sit, and loose leash walking, and we have worked on all of the above today. Along with that, he cannot take food from the floor, or beg in any way-ever. My dogs were fine with him right away, and Hunter and Finn have had many fine play sessions in the yard. I did not take him with me every where I went Tuesday as I thought it more important that he settle in and we get used to each other before I embarrass myself in public. He is after all an adolescent dog with very little formal training.
Tomorrow he will go everywhere I go.
He is quiet in his crate, and cuddly, very sweet and likes toys and balls. We took a short walk with his service vest on and he saw quite a few kids that he wanted to visit with, but settled quite nicely in a down while my 5 year old played. I noted that he was a little too interested in other dogs in my neighborhood. I had to remind myself that he is very young and has had only limited training.
All in all a great first day.
Service dogs also need to learn to potty on command so they can eliminate before entering a facility, and I realized that I need to use all Dagny's verbal commands and but first I need to find out what they are.

Below is an email except from Merrill's Mom Dagny explaining Hunter's job to me. The email was written when we were searching for a suitable dog. Both photographs were taken by her.

We realize that Autism in general and Autism Assistance Dogs in
particular are so new to the general community knowledge....

This is not to say that an Autism Assistance Dog does nothing but work
- there is a lot of free time, play time, and down time. All the
training is based on rewards and food treats, and there are very
specific cues. When the vest (or harness) goes on, it's time to work.
When it comes off, it's ok to be a dog who drools and chases a ball.
There are people in the community that will stop you to pet your head
every morning, and others that will come over to throw the ball for
you in the evening. There is a warm bed with your favorite Autistic
child to sleep at the foot of (or on the pillows!) every night. It
does take hard work, but there are many rewards in terms of food,
toys, attention, and love.

Note from Nancy--- while it not clear from this email, if the child was tethered to the dog, an adult would always be holding a leash.