Social Media is Lying to You About Service Dog Training

If you scroll through social media, it can look like service dog teams are out in public 24-7. Shopping, eating out, flying, going to zoos, doing all the things. But the truth is, it's totally misleading. So let's talk about how much public access training I'm actually doing with Denver. And let's do it in the context of what his real week looked like last week, including what our trip to the aquarium consisted of, because it's not what you think. Hi, I'm Laura from DoggyU and I'm a certified guide dog mobility instructor, service dog trainer, and trick trainer. And today, we're going to talk about what a schedule looks like for public access training for me and my 13-month-old service dog in training. So for this video, I actually took out my calendar, wrote down the days of the week, and wrote down any time that we did any public access training. And I also wrote down how long we spent public access training, where we went, and what our focus or goal was during that training session. So we'll start with Monday. And on Monday, Denver did no public access training. He had a typical Denver day in the life, where we get up, we hike in the morning for a few miles off leash. And then during the day, he does some combination of little bits of training throughout the day. He usually gets some type of kong or topple at some point in the day, as well as usually something to chew on in the evening, as well as time out in the yard and time snuggling on the couch with me while I do work-like editing videos. Now on Tuesday, we did do some public access training. So we went to a big box store in search of some protein mac and cheese. And the goal of this training session was twofold. One is I wanted to practice reaching over him and grabbing things off the shelf, especially things that were going to make noise, like a box of mac and cheese will. And I was stocking up, so I was getting a bunch. So I also brought in a reusable bag because I wanted to practice walking around the store with something in my right hand, so having him heal next to me nicely without the use of having my right hand free. And that entire trip took about 10 minutes total. So we did 10 minutes of public access training in a known location on Tuesday. Now what about Wednesday? Wednesday, we did no public access training, just his normal hiking training at home routine. Now on Thursday, we did another short public access training session, and that's because I ran out of shampoo and had to go to Ulta so I could get some shampoo. Now he's been there a ton of times since he was a little puppy, and I didn't really have a goal for this session. I just actually just needed to go there. But whenever I go into a store, I want to practice something. So I practice having him lay between me and the shelves while I was looking at things, and I practiced healing him around the store a little bit. But the whole trip maybe took like probably less than 10 minutes. So now we're at Thursday and we have about 20 minutes of public access under our belt for the first four days of the week. Now Friday was our longest public access session of the week, and that was me meeting up with a trainer friend of mine. She has a dog that she's training as well, and occasionally we meet up to train together. So we went and had them run around together in the play yard for about 30 minutes or so before we went out on our outing. And during that outing, we had two goals. One was settling next to each other, and one was working next to each other. So one thing that's really helpful if you have the ability or a friend with a service dog, or even just a friend with a well-behaved dog, is to have them play together and then have them work together. So they have to ignore their friend that they've been playing with. So we went and we walked to a smoothie shop, which was like five minutes of walking. We had them settle for 20-25 minutes max or so while we drank our smoothies at a table at a store. And then we had one more goal, which was to work around each other. So we walked five minutes to another store, and I practiced a little bit of Denver's newest behavior, which is blocking. We're working on practicing that out in public, not using the task, but just getting that position down. And I wanted to have my friend walk by while he was in that blocked position because he's never had another dog as a distraction before. So we practiced that, and that total trip to L.L. Bean was probably 15-20 minutes max or so. So that whole trip was 40-45 minutes. So now we're on Friday, we're five days into the week, and we've done about like an hour total of public access training. Saturday, Sunday, over the weekend, there was no public access training. Denver was actually entered in a it is junior hunt test, and so that was the only thing that we did this weekend, no public access training. Now before we talk about Denver's big aquarium trip, I would love it if you could head on down and boop that like button. Doing so positively reinforces me, and it lets me know that you want more videos like this one. And I am just realizing now that I said this is going to be a week, but I'm actually doing Monday to Monday, which is eight days, but we're just gonna pretend that maybe we'll just take the first Monday off. Anyways, we went to the aquarium on Monday. So how much of the trip to the aquarium was public access training for Denver? The answer? Only 20 minutes. That's 20 minutes from pulling him out of the crate to putting him back in the crate. That's it. Training him at the aquarium was actually a side quest. We were actually there to go do a penguin encounter with my niece, which was just an absolute blast. But since we were down there already, it was a great opportunity to do just a little bit of training with Denver. You might say it was 90 minutes to drive down there, so three hours round trip, so you should do a lot of training because you've made this big time investment in getting to the location. And I wholeheartedly disagree. It was a holiday weekend. There were tons of people, tons of kids, and my entire goal for the session was just for him to wait in a line, so having to be patient outside while there was a lot going on, walking through the gates, and then being able to offer me attention without being asked in front of a really big distraction, which was like the animal tanks, the smells, all of that, and just marking and reinforcing for engaging with me. So I don't point out animals. I don't encourage him to visually track them like I see some people do. Instead, I actually just reinforce him for disengaging from the animals that he's seeing and looking at me. And that is hard enough. That is enough to do in a training session. So in the park, Denver saw the beluga tank, had the belugas swimming by him, as well as we walked over to the sea lion and seal area where he laid down. He couldn't actually see them. He heard the noises. He smelled the smells of all the smells of the sea lions. And we talked to one of the people that worked for the park that was giving out information about the seals and sea lions. And then we left. That was the entire trip. There's no benefit to bringing a 13-month-old dog into a highly stimulating environment and waiting till he gets mentally tired and then starts rehearsing behaviors we don't want. Instead, we had a short, high-engagement trip. And by the time we were leaving, I still had a dog that was capable of walking nicely on a loose leash next to me, past all the kiddos, past the photographers, and out to the car. 20 minutes. Not the five hours that we were at the aquarium. Just 20 minutes. Now, prior to the aquarium, we had already walked him. He had his training at the aquarium. And then I put him back in the car with a nice extra large frozen Kong with some of his Oma's pride in there so he could chomp on that for an hour or so and then take a nap while he waited for us to finish up. And if I want to bring him on a longer aquarium trip, I absolutely can. But I'm going to choose a time that's not a holiday weekend. I'll pick a weekday. I'll pick the middle of the day. Sometime when there's going to be less, a little bit less stimulation for him to deal with for his first longer trip. And honestly, I'll probably wait till he's a bit older because I don't think that he's ready for that type of extended excursion yet. And that's okay. I train the dog in front of me at the level that they're ready for. So yes, on social media, it can look like we had this big adventure together or that he's out working with me every day. But that is not the reality of it. The reality is that public access training comprises less than 1% of Denver's week. Whereas just being a dog makes up the majority of his time. Hiking, running around, playing with friends, relaxing on the couch, chewing on a beef cheek roll, and training for different sports. Along with learning and practicing different behaviors that may or may not be directly service dog related. I'm not interested in pushing young dogs to act adult dogs when they're not developmentally ready. And I am certainly not interested in burning out my dog or souring him to the work by asking too much of him too soon. So that's all to remind you that social media is just a highlight reel. It's the most interesting part of the week filmed and put online, but generally most adolescent dogs are going to do best with short public access training sessions with specific goals that you're working towards in that session, and then sprinkling in a few longer settling sessions throughout the month. All right, y'all, if you enjoyed that video, you're going to love this one too, so you should click on it now. You all have an awesome day and happy training.