The Bitey End of the Dog
A podcast dedicated to helping dogs with aggression issues. Michael Shikashio CDBC chats with experts from around the world on the topic of aggression in dogs!
The Bitey End of the Dog
Challenges and Triumphs in the Service Dog World with Veronica Sanchez
Ever wondered what sets a service dog apart from therapy dogs and emotional support animals? Get ready for a deep dive into the legal frameworks, specifically the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Air Carrier Access Act, and how they impact the lives of individuals with disabilities.
Veronica Sanchez, the distinguished founder of Cooperative Paws Service Dog Coach shares her wealth of experience and anecdotal wisdom, shedding light on the profound responsibilities and challenges faced by service dogs and their handlers.
We also dive into the topic of encountering off-leash dogs, which can be a daunting experience for service dog handlers, especially in bustling urban settings, and explore effective strategies for maintaining service dog focus and composure amidst such distractions. Veronica also discusses the psychological impacts on service dogs and the necessity of downtime for their well-being in this enlightening episode.
ABOUT VERONICA:
Veronica Sanchez M.Ed, CDBC, CPDT-KA, is the founder of Cooperative Paws Service Dog Coach™, a certificate program for professional trainers in service dog training. She offers a variety of online courses, speaks and writes on service dogs for professional associations, and is the author of "Service Dog Coaching: A Guide for Pet Dog Trainers." Her background also includes a Masters in Education from George Mason University, and a certificate in Brain Research in Education from the University of Washington. Veronica has experience working with owner-trainers as well as working with non-profit service dog programs. Her interest in service dogs is both personal and professional. She has a disability herself, generalized dystonia, and has trained her own dogs to assist as service dogs.
Instagram: @cooperativepaws
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cooperativepaws/
Website: https://cooperativepaws.com/
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In this episode we dive into the world of service dogs and some of the myths and misconceptions that surround the tasks they perform, as well as what happens when a service dog displays aggression and even some strategies on what to do if a service dog is attacked by another dog. Veronica Sanchez, the founder of Cooperative Paws Service Dog Coach, a certificate program for professional trainers in service dog training, joins me for this enlightening conversation. She offers a variety of online courses, speaks and writes on service dogs for professional associations and is the author of Service Dog Coaching, a guide for pet dog trainers. Her background also includes a master's in education from George Mason University and a certificate in brain research and education from the University of Washington. Veronica has experience working with owner trainers as well as working with non-profit service dog programs. Her interest in service dogs is both personal and professional. She has a disability herself generalized dystonia and has trained her own dogs to assist as service dogs.
Speaker 1:And if you are enjoying the bitey end of the dog, you can support the podcast by going to aggressivedogcom, where there's a variety of resources to learn more about helping dogs with aggression issues, including the upcoming aggression and dogs conference happening from october 11th to 13th 2024 in scottsdale, arizona, with both in-person and online options. You can also learn more about the Aggression and Dogs Master Course, which is the most comprehensive course available anywhere in the world for learning how to work with and help dogs with aggression issues. I also have a wide variety of webinars, upcoming courses, videos and articles, all from the foremost experts in training and behavior. We are your one-stop shop for all things related to aggression in dogs. Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Bitey End of the Dog. I'm very excited for this episode because we're going to be talking about service dogs with Veronica Sanchez, who is an expert on this topic, and I'm really, really looking forward to diving in, because this is actually a topic I don't know much about, so I'm excited to have Veronica here. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:So let's dive in here, because we have a very broad audience, some folks deeply knowledgeable about this topic and some others maybe just wanting to learn more. So can you define first of all, like, what is a service dog? What does that mean?
Speaker 2:Because I know there's some controversy and some different definitions out there depending on who you ask. Yes, well, there's a lot of confusion about the terminology in the service dog world. So the term service dog in the United States it has a legal definition. It's defined in the Americans with Disabilities Act as a dog that has been trained specific behaviors, and in the service dog world we call these tasks to help a person with a disability. So some examples might be a guide dog that is leading somebody who is blind, or a hearing dog alerting someone who is deaf to somebody knocking on a door. There's lots and lots of different possible tasks that a service dog can be trained to do to help someone with a disability, and there's a wide range of different kinds of service dogs. They can be trained to help people who have mental health conditions like PTSD. They can be trained to help people who have different kinds of mobility-related disabilities or autoimmune conditions. I mean the list just goes on and on and on for the incredible range of different kinds of service dogs that are out there. Now, different countries have different legal definitions for service dogs, but the overall definition is basically a dog that is trained to do tasks for a person with a disability. That's the one, that is some version of that. Depending upon, of course, where you are in the world, they get confused with therapy dogs and also emotional support animals. I understand why people get confused, because the terms really are, there's some little overlapping areas and the role of therapy dogs has really grown and expanded, so we're seeing therapy dogs do new things and so then people get a bit confused about them. But therapy dogs don't have a legal definition like in the United States, so they're not in the Americans with Disabilities Act, for example. So they're not. They basically are trained to help people other than the handler, and so they're doing things like visitation in a hospital, or maybe children are reading to the dog in the library, and typically therapy dogs are part of some sort of program, so they're working with a therapy dog organization. Now where things get really really sticky is with emotional support animals. So and I will talk about this, and even when I talk about this, sometimes I myself go okay, this is confusing. So if you're in the United States, I will always point people to ADAgov, which is the Americans with Disabilities Act website, because there's a lot. If you put in service animal, you'll have the definitions there, depending upon where you are in the world. Some countries have more online than others, but you usually find clarifications because there's the confusion that we have in the United States is really actually happening everywhere. People get confused about the terms.
Speaker 2:The emotional support animal term it really is one that came from the United States and what happened is that the Air Carrier Access Act and there's no way for me to talk about this and make this sound super fun but another law but basically had a different definition of service dog and they included emotional support animals in there and they had this really broad definition. What was happening is that they didn't even define a species, so it was like these are just animals and their presence provides comfort. So they're not trained specific behaviors to help the person with the disability. And that's really the key thing is the task training. So a service dog has to be trained specific behaviors to help the person with the disability. So if the person has PTSD, the dog might be trained to do something like an anxiety alert or interrupt when the person has a nightmare.
Speaker 2:An emotional support animal it's just the presence of the animal provides comfort, and what was happening is that in the United States, esas or emotional support animals were allowed in the cabin of an airplane and this caused all kinds of issues and problems and people were bringing different species. I heard of everything from turkeys to chickens. Somebody tried to bring a peacock on a plane. Then there was also animals with behavior problems dogs with behavior problems coming in and in one case there was a pretty severe bite. That made the news.
Speaker 2:Airlines got understandably very concerned and they lobbied and said the department of transportation, essentially the law was changed and emotional support animals are no longer allowed in the cabin of an airplane.
Speaker 2:It would be nice if that was like the straight up end of the story, but there's still, uh, the fair housing act and so emotional support animals can be allowed in housing.
Speaker 2:That's its own little thing. So I I always tell people like A I'm not an attorney, but the ins and outs of the laws of the United States are all online and very, very clear, so you can find like Department of Transportation, because there's so many questions about service animal laws that they've all made FAQs that are super, super clearly spelled out. But in terms of conversations about what service animals are, it's they are service dogs, are dogs that are trained to help people with disabilities and they're trained these really specific behaviors to help, and in the United States and many other countries they are. People with disabilities have the legally protected right to take their service dog with them to places of public accommodation. This means places like grocery stores, restaurants, places that, even if a pet might not be allowed in those locations, the person with the disability is allowed to have their service dog with them there, and it's an accessibility thing. The same way, these locations need to have a ramp so somebody with a wheelchair can access the location.
Speaker 1:All right. So as you were talking there, you were mentioning and it was going through my mind as well, actually the gray area there for, like, being an emotional support animal and a true service dog, and you had mentioned the task. So I'll just throw a theoretical out there for you. What if somebody's like yeah, I've got this, my dog is a service dog. I have a mental condition or something. They say, something that they have, they're not specific, and my dog does a chin rest on my knee when I'm having this issue? Would that qualify as a task? Is that somebody then can say, oh, this dog is a service dog just because it does very baseline behavior like chin rest on my knee when I'm experiencing this?
Speaker 2:Right, that is one of those hot legal topics that I'm always like. So, in terms of the way the law is written, my interpretation would be if that person meets the legal definition of disability which I won't even begin to go into because the truth is that disability itself has a legal definition and it is like you know people, I did have a student of mine ask me about that and made me read the actual Americans with Disabilities Act. By the end I was like, okay, I'm really not sure, but you have to if the person meets the legal definition of disability. That's the first part, right? Because if they're not legally disabled and that's its own thing, then the service dog, it doesn't matter what the dog's trained to do, because they don't meet that legal definition of disability.
Speaker 2:If the task the chin rest directly relates to their disability and is mitigating their disability. Whether that one task would be enough is a question for a judge, but it might be. It might be because there's a lot of complexity to it, right? Like it depends what that chin rest, what's the function of that behavior. It is a trained behavior. Where the law is really clear is that, like it can't be a naturally offered behavior that's not trained Like that's one of the sticky areas that they talk about, because people will say sometimes well, my dog just does this and it's really helpful. It needs to be specifically trained to do behaviors that directly relate to the person's disability. So let's say you know the person doesn't have a disability that's related to that behavior and the dog's trained to do something, then that obviously doesn't count.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. They can't be like yeah, and that obviously doesn't count. Yeah. They can't be like, yeah, my dog is breathing and it reminds me to breathe, kind of thing Right.
Speaker 2:Right, right, exactly, that becomes an emotional support animal. The presence provides comfort of some kind. So it is really sticky. In most cases service dogs are trained more than one task. But I mean it also kind of, you know, if you talk about like a hearing dog, right, it's trained to alert to sounds, different sounds, lots of different sounds, but you, but still like there might be one sound that's particularly important to that individual, that could be make a huge difference. You know, how many tasks does the dog need to be trained to do? I mean, typically programs are training several, a number of different tasks. But yeah, it is, it is a question, right, cause that actually is like a chin rest on a lap. It could be an interrupter, it could be an anxiety alert, it could be a light version of deep pressure therapy that could be calming. So lots of uses for chin rest, yes, for sure, for humans and for dogs, for sure.
Speaker 1:So, along these lines, when we start getting into gray areas of things, when we have a service dog that might have a history of aggression or bites somebody, what happens then? What are the ramifications involved if we have a dog that has been trained as a service dog and suddenly changes or behavior? As we know, behavior is not static, it can change over the years. And it bites somebody or causes injury to somebody. What happens then?
Speaker 2:Right. So in the industry there is a zero tolerance policy for aggressive behavior. If a dog has a history of aggressive behavior, that dog is not a service dog candidate. If the dog's behavior changes, that dog is not a public access appropriate service dog. Once it's exhibiting aggressive behavior, in most cases that would result the nice way of saying it is career change, the not nice way of saying it is wash out. The Department of Justice does have an FAQ section where they don't really say it in terms of like a permanent career change in terms of their FAQ section. But in the industry it's pretty much treated that way, but in the FAQ they more say like if the dog exhibits some sort of unsafe behavior, really disruptive behavior, that the business owner has the right to ask that the service dog be removed.
Speaker 2:And that's in the United States. Now other countries actually have public access testing and government, more government control over the dogs that go out in public access, and there's a lot of variety in terms of that. The United States not quite as much. And that's really a hard one, right, because we have a lot of owner trainers, people with disabilities, selecting and training their own dogs for service work. And if the dog exhibits an unsafe behavior. It's not fair to the dog to put the dog in public access. I've even actually seen trainers get a little bit confused about this because they think but we can do so much to help dogs with aggressive behavior and we can do so much to modify their behavior, why can't we take this dog that has, you know, some trauma and a difficult history, modify the aggressive behavior and then train the dog for service work? Why is that, you know, in any way?
Speaker 2:What I always say is that public access is not the same thing as taking your dog, a pet dog, to a farmer's market or to a pet store or anything like that. It's very different because in public access, the handler with a disability is not focused on the dog. They are not scanning their environment, they are not looking for potential triggers, they are not in situations where they can easily move away or create distance. It is not possible to not flood overwhelm trigger and they might be having a conversation with someone engaged shopping at the store, not even looking at their dog at all for large chunks of time. So that's why public access is really just not appropriate to put a dog that has a history of that kind of behavior. It's not fair to the dog, it's not fair to the public and, ultimately, it's not fair to the individual themselves, because they're going to end up in a bad situation.
Speaker 1:And it's not fair to service dogs and their people around the world. Because it can scar the image. Really, when you think about it.
Speaker 1:Suddenly all these service dogs are running around biting people. It's obviously not good for the reputation and, along those lines, what if it's something that often happens? In many aggression cases it's not really the fault of the dog, so I'll use just a random example. Maybe it's just a small child comes running up to the service dog, no parent in sight, and the child just grabs the dog on the ear or squeezes really hard or does something really awful, and the dog has no escape and just ends up turning and biting or snapping at the child or showing some other aggressive behavior. What then? Because you know that really isn't the dog's fault at all.
Speaker 1:Right, it's the dog simply defending themselves.
Speaker 2:No, right, and this is why, when we look for service dog candidates, we look for dogs that are exceptionally tolerant. These are not typical dogs. These are dogs that are really, really tolerant. I live right outside of Washington DC and I can give an example of like.
Speaker 2:When I was out with my first service dog one time just, and I wasn't even in public access, I was actually just on the street and a random at a rough collie and a random person man just got in front of my dog's face and yelled Lassie, lassie, lassie. Directly into his face, inches away from him. You know now, would a bark have been okay? Yeah, but not a bite. You know what I'm saying? Like, you have to be really, really tolerant. He actually did nothing because he was like, he was very, just, incredibly tolerant and thought that everybody was just. You know, I'm a movie star anyway, so just typical for me to be yelled at. So that's my paparazzi.
Speaker 2:But that was the ideal response. Is the no response or the tail wag. Oh, you're my friend, you're my very, very loud in your face friend. But that's what we want. What we're asking for is a lot from public access service dogs, and it's a lot of. It is the individual dog's characteristics. This is why Assistance Dogs International member organizations and programs a lot of service dog programs have their own breeding pools and they are working really hard to get dogs that are very, very tolerant of these different kinds of situations.
Speaker 1:And it's very difficult when you're talking about genetics and the breeding.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:From my understanding, it's actually very difficult to you know. So you have many, many puppies, but only a few of them might qualify, if that Is that correct.
Speaker 2:Right, oh yeah, yeah. I mean it's really hard to come by statistics because I don't think programs, I don't think anybody wants to advertise, we only have half of them work no-transcript.
Speaker 1:a desirable outcome in the breeding programs. I'm sure, Because if, let's say, the world just started getting dogs from these pools of dogs, we would have put somebody like me out of business, probably because we'd see a significant decline in aggression, because these dogs are so tolerant to things that happen to them that typically would trigger an aggressive response. So just me thinking outside the box a little bit here, Right?
Speaker 2:right For you it's good that the breeding pools are closed and small. Yeah, I mean, I think it's as an owner trainer I've chosen to like, take my chances. You know picking dogs and and as a result of that I don't end up with all public access service dogs. You know, sometimes some of the characteristics that we want don't always so like let's think about a hearing dog, for instance. Right, a hearing dog actually think hearing dog training is super, super fun because, like this is a dog that you know might've wanted to bark at whatever was happening in the neighborhood and now gets to run and tell you about it and then lead you to the sound source and gets treats. So dogs that have the behavioral characteristics for that kind of work really love it and they tend to be very natural at it. Like you'll train a couple of tasks and then they start alerting to every sound ever and they're just having the best time. So it's one of those tasks that can be just once the dogs figure out how to do it, it can be naturally. I find the dogs really enjoy the task itself, which isn't always true for a service dog tasks, but for hearing dogs you need a dog that naturally notices sounds.
Speaker 2:Dogs that naturally notice sounds, are often either afraid of them or a little bit reactive. So you want a naturally noticing sounds, a lot of sounds, active but not reactive. I mean, this is hard right. So you know, that's a mobility dog. Usually it's a little bit, at least it kind of all fits a little more because you want normally not always, but depending upon the individual most cases you want a lower energy dog that isn't particularly reactive. So that's okay. Well, that's going to all fit. And when we get into more of these alert, alerting jobs, where you want a dog, that's sort of more and noticing the environment more, it's hard to get noticing the environment but yet not noticing the environment, not noticing the environment, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1:Yes, because, as you're like some of our clients in the aggression space, I mean, they are hyper-vigilant and they are noticing everything, but just not the way we want them to right.
Speaker 2:Right, right, I mean yeah. So it's definitely a tough one because it's like I always always say like you want, sometimes people with mental health conditions will go for, like sensitive, and I'm always like don't go for sensitive, go for the happy-go-lucky, doesn't care what mood you're in, because because you go for sensitive and then you just get, but you want highly trainable, right, but not too sensitive. It's a really hard, it's a really big ask and there's a lot of different things in there that just become like the more you start thinking about what you're looking for in a service dog candidate, the more you start getting like wait, and then you get an owner trainer who then has additional requirements like, well, we don't want shedding, okay, and now now our pool's getting smaller and smaller yeah, in that regard.
Speaker 1:I mean it's almost like you need a dating app for people to match with service dogs. I mean, there's so many variables, so we had talked about that. You know sourcing from breeders and from organizations that focus specifically on breeding for service dogs, but so where else can people go? For? You mentioned owner trainers. Is there a service or something you provide where you help people match with a certain dog?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so well when I teach professional dog trainers how to train service dogs and one of the things that I teach them is we talk about like for owner trainers is to definitely provide a before you got the dog consult.
Speaker 2:And I encourage owner trainers to go and find a qualified service dog trainer before they've gotten their dog so they can get some coaching on what to look for and realize that even with all of the coaching and all the guidance and even getting a dog from a breeder that has generations of producing service dogs, there's still not a guarantee you're going to get public access, a public access appropriate service dog, because there are so many different aspects to that. But it is really good to go to a professional trainer to get some guidance on that. But it is really good to go to a professional trainer to get some guidance on that. And great service dogs, I mean, can come from kind of everywhere, but they're hard to find and you have to be aware of that. And then I always say with like, owner trainers need to be right from the beginning. Just be aware they might not end up with a dog that is appropriate for public access. That's just the hard reality of the situation.
Speaker 1:With that in mind, can you talk about the financial aspect of it too? Because you know, let's say, somebody goes and gets a dog and they select a dog from the shelter. They find what they feel is perfect match, but it doesn't end up working out well for them. Their dog isn't able to meet the needs of the particular task. And they now are with this dog and they've spent some time and money and probably are connected and bonded with the dog, but then they have to go find another dog. So what do we do there? What are the options there? And as far as also the financial aspect, people with disabilities often are having difficulty from the financial standpoint and I imagine service dog training can get quite costly. Are there financial aid situations that can happen or other assistance programs in place?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 2:So first, there's, like, essentially, you know, two ways to get a service dog. If I went down to it. One is to apply to a nonprofit program that trains service dogs, and one of the issues we're having right now is that the demand is so high that it's not unusual to see four-year wait lists or longer than that. I used to I want to say like five years ago I always said I used to say two-year wait lists. I literally have had to change that. It's not unusual to see programs that aren't taking people to waitlist because of the demand being as high as what it is. So the other option is to select and train your own dog for service work and in that case I would say, ideally you're getting coaching from a trainer that can provide some guidance, maybe even provide some leads or breeder referrals even. But let's say, you do what I did on my second service dog, thinking, you know, because my first service dog was a very easy to train dog for public access, because I got lucky and I just that's literally I just got lucky. He was very, very natural, low key dog and I did what you know.
Speaker 2:At that point I was fairly newly disabled and that's not unusual from what I'm seeing now, that people are getting service dogs because they're so aware of the benefits of service dogs that they're getting them a little earlier. So that means we're adjusting to disability and we're getting a dog at the same time. So there's a lot of changes and things coming in. We're going in with a lot of hope and we've also now experienced a lot of stress because we're adjusting to our own health condition. Then you go to the animal shelter because you did essentially exactly what I did and then ended up with oh, you know, I've put a lot of time, money, effort and at 11 months my dog was showing reactivity. I had some extra disappointment at that point because he actually had. I was kind of rushing. I tell people now not to rush the training process because we know adolescent behavior is particularly likely to change. That's a time where there's a lot of up and down and in my case with my dog, he was an adolescent and that was when he was changing. But had I waited to do some of the assessments until he was closer to two, I might not have been so disappointed. So like oh my gosh, something's happening. Because I would have been so disappointed so like oh my gosh, something's happening, because I would have been more ready for that In that case, like most owner trainers and in my experience the vast majority of owner trainers when they get a dog they end up committing to the dog and so the majority of the time they fall in love with their dog.
Speaker 2:And so then, if the dog has a behavior problem, that needs to be addressed first, and so I did that. I worked myself, I got colleagues recruited, help addressed my dog's behavior problem, and that, of course, is not going to be a perfect fix. You're not going to end up with public access at that point, but you need to have a dog that you can live with and manage safely first and that you have a good quality of life for the dog, and then after that, in some cases, it might be appropriate to then train some tasks and have the dog as an at-home helper, an at-home only service dog. Now, that would be a dog that's just basically trained tasks, just to help you at home, and with more and more people working from home, in some cases that can be exactly what the person needs. For me, at that point when that happened in my life, I was not working, I was newly disabled, I was in and out of hospitals and I was in a really good situation to need an at-home only service dog. So actually my dog was extremely helpful during that time period to me and I was so disappointed that he didn't end up being public access. But the reality was that his sensitivity, which was a big problem for public access, was a huge asset for me at home With some tasks, hearing tasks, alerts, things like that. If the person's working from home again, that might be a perfect fit.
Speaker 2:I say trainers who are gonna do an at-home only service dog, I do caution them because we don't. The law in the United States is so vague. I say get everything in writing, have an attorney, review your contract. You wanna make sure your client's fully on board. You wanna make sure your client's fully on board? You want to make sure your client understands why the dog is not going to go out in public, that it's not fair to the public, it's not fair to other service dogs, it's not fair to the dog and that they fully understand that and that they're on board. You don't want to be training an at-home only service dog when the person isn't really in agreement with that or might push the dog further.
Speaker 1:Just a quick follow-up question on that, if somebody just had me thinking at home and people working from home is there protections for, say, somebody has a landlord and they're like I want to charge you 500 bucks a month for your pet, that kind of pet payment or something like that. Is there protections against that? Or what's the law around that? Do you know?
Speaker 2:Remember earlier when I talked about ESAs and that's like the pocket where they still exist in the United States is in housing. So there's still technically. Yes, I guess there would be. I always want to say like verify this with an attorney.
Speaker 2:Because whether any particular case and what documentation might be needed. I don't, you know, I don't know, and I really mean that because also, like, a lot of these laws aren't tested, we don't have like a lot of cases with like individual details, so we don't know what will happen in particular subtleties of particular cases, because, I mean, service dogs have been around for a while but this big growth is new, so we don't have a lot of precedent, you know, for this. You know, not all countries even have laws that acknowledge the existence of another service dog other than, say, a guide dog. Some of them don't even and I'm talking about European countries here, I'm not talking about, like you know, these are there's countries that just there's not even in the books, that don't even define them, and so there's still a lot of groundbreaking in the service dog world Interesting.
Speaker 1:So my understanding is that, like a landlord can't deny somebody from having a service dog in their apartment, is that correct? Almost like well, I guess the question is some places they can't force somebody, for instance, to build a ramp in some I guess it depends on the size of the unit or something like that.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, the law is so complicated and convoluted because I live, like I mentioned, I live outside of DC, so there's like buildings that are historical and so they get weird ways of becoming accessible that aren't always fully accessible. And you know, you start looking and like, wait, what size of wheelchair fits into this elevator, or you know, or so anyway, that's kind of service dog law. It can get really complicated and convoluted, and I was really only talking about federal law here. States have laws too. So when it comes to like service dogs in training, you have to look at state laws, and state laws vary state by state and if you're in a place like Canada, you're looking at provinces and I mean.
Speaker 2:So again, there's a reason everyone's confused. I know sometimes dog trainers get frustrated, these people don't know, and I'm like, yeah, nobody really knows, because it's very confusing. And then when we add in terms like ESA, so forth, and everybody, nobody knows what to say or how to respond to that, because it's just, you know, people confuse emotional support animals with service dogs trained to help people who have mental illness, but they are not the same thing Again.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, and you see that if you, if you see, like, if you're on social media and you see some of these videos and, for whatever reason, the algorithms feed me those videos of somebody out with their service dog and getting confronted and you can see the confusion, like some people just have no clue about the laws at all and some people have many misconceptions. So it's really interesting and so it is very confusing and I agree with that. It's not an easy landscape to navigate at all.
Speaker 2:I should even qualify this, because in many countries the term is actually assistance dog, it's not ESS, so yeah, and so in many countries it's not even yeah, so then we add that to it and the terms can be different in different countries, so it just becomes a thing. There was a lot of confusion about that. Now I'm like service slash assistance dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, we're going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors and we're going to come back and I'd love to dive into what happens if a service dog is attacked by another dog or experiences something negative like that. So we'll be right back. Hey friends, it's me again and I hope you are enjoying this episode. Don't forget to join me for the fifth annual Aggression and Dogs Conference, either in person or online, from Scottsdale, arizona, from October 11th to the 13th 2024. This year's lineup includes many incredible speakers, including Dr Clive Wynn, dr Jessica Heckman, emma Parsons, sarah Kallnice, lori Lawless, carmeletta Ofterheide, jess Feliciano, dr Amy Cook and many more. Head on over to aggressivedogcom and click on the conference tab to learn more about the exciting agenda on everything from advanced concepts in dog body language to working with aggression in shelter environments, to genetic influences on behavior. Dr Amy Cook will be bringing her entertaining and energetic personality to the grand reception and cocktail party which, by the way, will be live streamed as well as in person, will be live streamed as well as in person and, as usual, you'll find a wonderful, kind, caring and supportive community at the conference, both in person and online. I also want to take a moment to thank one of our wonderful sponsors this year Pets for Vets. Did you know that approximately 1 million shelter animals are euthanized in the US every year? At the same time, many of our country's veterans are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, anxiety and or depression. Pets for Vets founder and executive director, clarissa Black, created a solution for these problems by rescuing and training animals for veterans. Pets for Vets has a unique program model that customizes each match between a veteran and a shelter animal to create what is known as a super bond. Each animal is selected and trained specifically for each veteran, based on the nuanced relationship between animal behavior and human personality, to ensure a successful, reciprocal and enriched relationship. Pets for Vets has a positive reinforcement mentality at its core for animals, veterans and trainers. In addition to helping veterans and rescue animals, clarester has created a generous opportunity for positive reinforcement trainers to join our organization. Trainers are able to participate anywhere in the US while receiving stipends, professional development opportunities and maintaining a flexible schedule. Pets for Vets is also seeking new partnerships with animal shelters and rescue groups from around the country. For more information, please visit petsforvetscom.
Speaker 1:All right, we're back here with Veronica Sanchez. We have been talking about service dogs and we're going to jump right into the. We have been talking about service dogs and we're going to jump right into the topic of what do we do now if a service dog is attacked by an off-leash dog or any other animal for that matter, or person, but let's say it's another dog. What are some things that we have to think about there? Because sometimes that single event learning can be so profound where just that one attack can be incredibly detrimental to both the person and the dog and, you know, can cause injuries, it can cause, you know, behavioral changes. So what do you suggest there? It's kind of a broad question, but what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Right. Well, we do hear about this quite a bit. I'll mention that in the United States, there are many states that do have special legal protections for service dogs and there can be consequences for people creating that situation having an off-leash dog, their off-leash dog attack a service dog. So there are states that have additional penalties and fines for hurting a service dog. Now, obviously, yeah, it can absolutely be an issue and there are people who had service dogs that have had to be retired early because the dog did not recover from the experience. So, ideally, if something terrible happens, that the handler of the service dog is able to protect the dog in some way, prevent it from happening, and then contacts if the dog came from a program or if they're working with a trainer, contacts their trainer immediately for some next steps to what to do. It might be a short public access vacation to give the dog some downtime to regroup, and then a slow you know, depending upon what actually happened counter-conditioning, desensitization, whatever it is that you might need to do to reintroduce One thing that I do talk about and this isn't even just there are so many service dogs and dogs and not even just service dogs. So many locations are pet-friendly now that were not pet-friendly before. So service dogs are encountering pets and having to work in close proximity with other dogs pretty much everywhere at this point a lot of places anyway. So I do think that that needs to be considered in the training process right from the beginning.
Speaker 2:I know with my own dog, every time my dog sees a dog, my dog gets food and has from eight weeks every time. It's like you see a dog, look at me get food every single time trying to put that in the bank to try to stack the odds in the favor. And almost every time I go out again I'm in a more urban area almost every time I go out my dog is going to get, at the very minimum, barked at aggressive, reactive by another reactive dog. That's going to happen pretty much every single time, just because of the fact that where I live and there's a lot of dogs and so you know we just continuously work on a circle, move away, and I just I train a lot of patterns of like a, just a simple U-turn. You know, when you're working with adaptive equipment, you've got to work with the adaptive equipment, so like with a wheelchair, I use a walker a lot, so I do a lot of U-turns and I will position my walker between my dog and the other dog. It's not much of a visual barrier, but it's better than no visual barrier. And with handlers using wheelchairs, similar Just practice that pattern over and over and over and over again and lots and lots and lots of food.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean, it's definitely an issue. I think it's harder for service dogs now than it has been before Because we have the combination of more pet friendly locations, people loving to take their dogs out with them more to more locations, and then also, even if you're in a location that is not a pet friendly location, the odds of encountering another service dog team there are pretty high, and not all of those dogs are selected to. Ideally we want to say all the service dogs have been selected perfectly, but obviously they're not, and so you might encounter even in a not pet-friendly location you might encounter a dog that's reacting and stressed, so it's definitely like a constant thing.
Speaker 2:It's a lot to ask what we're asking for these dogs to do, which is why I think we're talking so much. I mean, in the pet world we're talking about this. You know the decompression, enrichment, you know all these kinds of things to try to reduce their stress level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you brought up a good point there. Even some service dogs might have issues with the dogs in some environments. That's another thing to contend with Do you teach anything to your students about what to do if an attack happens? So let's say you are going on the street and there's some off-leash dog and there's no owner in sight and it's coming after your dog. Do you teach anything for an emergency handling perspective or what to do in that kind of situation?
Speaker 2:So right now I'm working with trainers and then a lot of them are behavior consultants too. But when I work directly with people with disabilities, with their service dogs, we talked a lot about and we practiced really quick moveaways a lot until they were really good at doing the U-turn, the pattern, and we talked a lot about how to do that kind of thing in order to make space as quickly as possible. It's always a little bit of a toss-up when the dog's off leash, because tightening up on your leash versus taking your chances and relaxing the leash and hoping things go well. So, uh, it's always like one of those like um, yeah, now, uh, the one thing I will say with my service dog Handler is that off-leash was not as much of an issue with my clients with mobility disabilities, because they're not usually in parks, usually they're in urban areas where the leashes are on. So it was more like a matter of making space and moving away and trying to do that quickly, which is really hard to do with adaptive equipment, because if you're walking on a sidewalk and you're approaching somebody, a person in a wheelchair, that wheelchair they don't drive the same on grass that they do on cement. Power wheelchairs are faster on a straight line than they are when they turn. So as soon as you start turning it's almost like they stop. So even just like pass-bys passing by people with other dogs, people don't make space. This has been an issue for me also with a walker, and I'll be just in an urban area just moving.
Speaker 2:We don't want dogs nose to nose right, like I mean in general. We don't want them like just moving up, nose to nose and a person who's using adaptive equipment. They can't turn their equipment, the dog's trapped. If you can sort of envision it, they're more likely to be trapped. They can't move from one side to the other. You can't have as loose leash because the leash entangles in the adaptive equipment. So you can't have like, oh, I'm going to let you move for front, can't move behind because the person can't move their hand behind. Or you can't hold onto a walker and then have your leash behind you. Yeah, you pretty much have a pivot in most cases. So pivot, pivot, pivot, yeah.
Speaker 1:Interesting you know as you were talking there about. You know certain environments and off-leash dogs.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:You have students all over the world, you know trainers. And have you ever heard any discussion or heard from any students about that, living in countries where there's a tremendous amount of off-leash dogs? So free-roaming dogs, so free roaming dogs. Now, the interesting thing for me is those dogs typically aren't going to be charging up randomly to strange dogs, because that wouldn't usually work out well for them.
Speaker 1:But, they're also very tolerant. They're very, you know, just living the life. They don't need to charge up to some strange dog. But it can happen, you know. You go by somebody's house because a lot of those times in some countries they're free roaming but they're also territorial about certain areas. Or they live at somebody's house but they have free access to go out on the street and what will happen is they charge out onto the road, or they charge and then they stop. They don't do anything further than that, they just kind of announce hey, this is my property, get away.
Speaker 1:But have you heard from any of your students about what the impacts and influences there? Is it a problem? Does it change things? Because it's a lot different.
Speaker 2:That is different. That is a really different situation. I have not had students who've shared that with me in terms of, like their own clients having that be kind of a major issue. In terms of, like, just street dogs in particular, it's more what I hear is more like encountering reactive dogs in public access that's the biggest kind of complaint that I get and that they go out and then their dog is getting trapped or cornered in a public access environment. I don't know too if it's like cause.
Speaker 2:If I think about I mean, that has to be an issue. I you know, and if you're living in a city where there's a lot of street dogs, I would imagine that that still has to be an issue. But since they are stopping short and just barking, I'm kind of almost envisioning me in suburban Northern Virginia of your invisible fence situation where you're walking past yards and the dogs are just like running up and stopping short, so you're like, oh wait, oh, you stopped so, but you don't know until you actually you know are there that they're going to stop. Yeah, I mean, I think like the only good thing about situations like that is that if it's your neighborhood and you live there, you're going to know, kind of like, where they are. So I would imagine that in that kind of situation you can at least predict your path, predict your walking location, predict your path, because I would imagine street dogs have predictable patterns where they're going to hang out at.
Speaker 1:An interesting thing for me too now I I'm thinking more about this is you were mentioning earlier about tolerance and how adaptive they are to not reacting back, and when you think about that, that's such a beautiful trait to have, because oftentimes that's what gets the other dog to escalate. You know some reaction.
Speaker 1:They come out, bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, and then nothing happens from the other dog the other dog's, like you know. Hey, relax, buddy, and then life goes on as normal. It's actually you know, if dogs responded to that all the time, we would have much less issues between dogs, Right?
Speaker 2:So yeah, well, you kind of reminded me of something I do want the dog to look at the handler when there's another dog, because I don't want them just staring at the dog that's barking, because that's going to make that situation worse. So I do talk about, like you know, we're going to try to have your dog try to help the situation as much as possible by not continuing to stare and turning away and moving away, and so we're not giving that other dog a reason to get more nervous.
Speaker 1:And do you think a big part of it also is that in training, during the training stages and really socialization, habituation, acclimation to the environment, it's because we're also setting scenarios with the other dogs in the environment. Often, I'm guessing, other service dog trainees are all together and they're all learning like, hey, we can ignore each other completely, Like there's no need to pay attention to you. Do you think that has a lot of bearing? This dog is now learning that, hey, most other dogs just ignore me, so I don't have to worry about other dogs. Do you think that builds a lot of like foundational resiliency? I guess for lack of a better word- I think so.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that when I worked with owner trainers I did one on one and their dogs were exposed to my dog. But when I live in a fairly like I mentioned urban area, I think most dogs are not reacting, even in my urban area. So it's like you know, it's like what? 10% right Majority. So if you go out and you get treats every time you pass a dog and then one of the dogs is barking but you still get the treat and nothing bad happened, right, you got barked at and we moved away and it was like a non-event For a lot of dogs. If that's how they're raised and experiencing and if the dog's in a group class and they do have a lot of training and a lot of sometimes some service dog programs run them in group classes the programs are going to be working with groups of dogs. I also do like to do a lot of social facilitation, bringing an experienced service dog along with the team. So you have like this dog, that's like eh, whatever, that you know that's not a big deal. You're getting a lot of cues of things not being a big deal and you're working right from that, beginning to try to build resilience in the dog building, you know, confidence.
Speaker 2:I also think there's a lot to be said to for with owner trained service dogs in particular, because owner trainers sometimes see like a service dog program where they'll see like, well, there's that lab in the vest at nine months, there's that lab in the vest at you know nine or 10 months in the mall or in the whatever, and I'm like that's a program bred lab. That's not the dog you picked, you know. So, yeah, you know, you picked a herding breed mix. So you know, go slower and acknowledge the adolescent period, because some of these dogs they're just, they're not reactive forever.
Speaker 2:They're reactive at 11 months, they're having a bad month and if they are just hanging around your backyard or doing long line walks in the woods from 11 to 14 months and then you go back and work with them again, they'll be okay. So I think, particularly for owner trainers, I would love to redefine what looks like service dog training for them, because a lot of times owner trainers are looking at a program model and not looking at the dog that they have in front of them and then adjusting that, because I don't think that they all automatically don't end up being okay for public access just because they had a really bad adolescence. I've seen some really great service dogs that if you looked at them when they were adolescents you would have been like, oh you know, that dog's afraid of the universe and not able to focus anywhere. I always like think, like, please, no one judge me based on my behavior at 16. So forever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you bring up such a really good point there. You know, adjusting for the learner that's in front of us and in that regard, maybe we could spend the last few minutes here talking about maybe if you can give me keeping in mind, this is an aggression podcast maybe your top three tips for because there's a lot of trainers listening into this show and what are maybe your top three tips for trainers accommodating people with disabilities in there. So they maybe they get hired by a client. That person has a disability and they also have a dog with a history of aggression or reactivity.
Speaker 1:So, along those lines maybe what would be some of your top suggestions for those trainers to look for or help or research or whatever comes top of mind for you.
Speaker 2:So I would look at what the number one thing is. Look at what the person can do. So you want to focus on what that person's abilities are, so maybe they can really use their voice really well and you're not used to using voice as a way of getting and keeping the dog's attention because their treat delivery is too slow. Well then, help them, maximize the use of their voice to get their dog's attention and refocus their dog and it. You know, it's like lots of praise, lots of happy talk. So you want to focus on what the person can do.
Speaker 2:I would also say we as trainers, when you're breaking your criteria down, a lot of times when you're working with someone with a disability, it can help to break it down more than what you might normally do. So let's say you're doing something really simple, like I talked about pivots and U-turns, because that's like my go-to with like move, get away, okay. Like kind of turn around, get away. We're going to make some space. So have the client practice the U-turn with their adaptive equipment without the dog, because the adaptive equipment requires concentration to think about. It's like driving a car and then you're trying to drive a car and train a dog at the same time and it's a reactive dog, so you're doing a lot and so if you imagine that and then you know in the sidewalk and really getting that you need to be really smooth on that U-turn with the adaptive equipment before you can add the dog in.
Speaker 2:So have them. Break that criteria down to even smaller pieces and I would. The other thing is I would teach less and build it to fluency more, so like if I'm don't try to do 50 million strategies, try to do like two or three and really get those like to fluency, because I mean honestly, like a nose touch, like a really solid nose touch to hand can get you so much. So like you know, so right, like, yeah, so just like practice that in a million different contexts and slowly and build fluency with that. You know it's already a complex situation, so try to simplify it and just have it really fluent and really well generalized.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Love it. I love it all, Veronica. Thank you so much. Where can people find you? Where can people reach out to you if they need to?
Speaker 2:can people find you? Where can people reach out to you if they need to? Cooperative Paws, which is my website, cooperativepawscom. I have a contact page. I have courses that I offer there for trainers interested in learning about service dog training and a certificate program for trainers who want to really get involved with that the service dog coach program and I also have a blog. Get involved with that the Service Dog Coach program and I also have a blog. And for pet trainers who are just working with clients with disabilities that blog you can put different terms in the search and maybe like working with clients with speech disabilities, and there are all the blog posts that I've written about that, and those accommodations would apply to a pet trainer as well. So the blog there is free. And then I'm on Instagram at Cooperative Paws, and then also on Facebook too.
Speaker 1:Excellent, excellent. Yeah, so I'll be sure to link those in the show notes. Thank you so much. This was super educational for me and, I'm sure, for the listeners, and I hope to see you again in the future. Thank you so much for having me super educational for me and, I'm sure, for the listeners, and I hope to see you again in the future.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:I really learned a lot about service dogs chatting with Veronica. She truly is a wealth of information on this topic and I'm really glad we had the opportunity to bring more awareness about the important roles of service dogs that they play in our community. And don't forget to head on over to aggressivedogcom for more information about helping dogs with aggression, from the Aggression and Dogs Master Course to webinars from world-renowned experts and even an annual conference. We have options for both pet pros and pet owners to learn more about aggression and dogs. We also have the Help for Dogs with Aggression bonus episodes that you can subscribe to. These are solo shows where I walk you through how to work with a variety of types of aggression, such as resource guarding, dog-to-dog aggression, territorial aggression, fear-based aggression and much, much more. You can find a link to subscribe in the show notes or by hitting the subscribe button if you're listening in on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening in and, as always, stay well, my friends.