Book Suggestions!

[Ali]

Hey Everyone!

So, I am looking way into the future but thought it would be a good idea to start training my puppy for therapy work, or the obedience that is required for therapy work and some fun tricks. So I was wondering if there are any great books out there that you would like to recommend to me (and to everyone else interested) that helps with therapy training and fun dog tricks.

Thanks for your help,

Ali & Lola

[Ali]

Oh, and to add to this. If you do have a therapy dog, what did you do to prepare your dog for therapy work?

[Adina P]

Ali,
Our training wasn't specific to therapy work until Rosco was about a 1 1/2 yrs. Essentially, you just want to get your pup well socialized and comfortable in a lot of different situations. Beyond that, a lot of hard work in general obedience is important. To do therapy, your dog does not have to have to be perfect in obedience. But, my opinion is that you should strive for excellence in obedience because that makes everything so much easier in all of life and it gives you an excellent therapy dog as far as one you can easily work with.

We did a specific type of "old school" training that is summarized in the video series I reviewed in the reviews section. But that is intended for dogs who are at least six months and requires you to feel OK about choke chains and corrections. Until then lots a practice and lots of socialization is excellent. Get your dog to the point where she will more likely sit rather than jump on people. When her vaccinations are completed, take her to different parks, hardware stores like Home Depot or Lowes, farmers markets, downtown, and anywhere else that will allow dogs.

I don't have a good book recommendation for you for basic obedience, hopefully others will have good suggestions.

About five weeks before our Delta evaluation we really kicked our training into high gear. About five days a week (if we could find help all of those days) we went out all over town and recruited both friends and strangers to help us with three main items of the test:

-- sitting politely for petting
-- greeting a stranger without my dog leaving my side
-- greeting a stranger with a dog without my dog leaving my side or staring down the other dog (this was the toughest one and require the most practice)

The reason I believe so strongly in obedience training is that if you can get your dog to heel on command this command requires that your dog sit when you stop walking. So working on this around distractions, as obedience training requires, really helps a ton.

If you go to http://deltasociety.org and click on volunteer--the links should take you to where you can purchase the training Manual. Now the Manual does almost nothing to show you how to train your dog but merely gives you an idea of what therapy will be like.

Oh and as far is tricks go--I highly recommend teaching her many tricks. I didn't do that with Rosco--not enough anyway. And found that people really wanted to see tricks--they don't care about obedience (even though it's critical it's what works behind the scenes)..LOL.

I'd talk Rosco to "wave" which I gleaned from another therapy person for when they go to hospitals and some patients don't want the dog to come in. She just has her dog wave at the person. Rosco's wave is mediocre. I also taught Rosco to "take a bow" and that is a crowd pleaser at the end of the any visit. Rosco learned how to roll over during several of his Juvie visits--the kids and I taught him together.

Good luck!

[Lake Girl, Lizette]

Hi Ya Ali & Lola,
I wanted to ask if you would keep me notified if you get any info concerning therapy dog training. I want to train both Molly and Nestle that will be coming to us Dec. 26th as therapy dogs. We started puppy obedience this past week. I am not having any problems with training but her socialization skills with other dogs is going to take some time after she was attacked by my former dog. She is very wary of other dogs and runs from them. Loves people and has a ton of rewarding experiences with humans. Thanks a lot!