[nagdu] Puppyraising for owner training

[Tamara Smith-Kinney]

Can't say from here if you're wet or dry, but you said it really well.
/grin/

That is one advantage of raising and socializing your own puppy to
owner-train, in fact.  Even before you decide to go out and get a harness
since it looks like the dog will work out for guide dog training, you're in
essence training your dog from day one by exposing it to all the things it
will encounter as your guide.

I knew Mitzi was a smart little critter from the get-go, sometimes coming up
with unbelievable connections that she would have to repeat in several
scenarios before I would believe it wasn't just my imagination.  I finally
broke down to call the breeder who assured me that, no, poodles are really
that smart and that Mitzi's great grandmother is the smartest poodle even
she has ever known and that Mitzi sounds a lot like great grandma.  Scary,
and I really had to work to keep that busy, strange little mind of hers busy
and out of trouble and moving in the direction I wanted it to while she was
growing up.  Whew!

Any prospective guide who hopes to be successful needs to have a whole lot
going on upstairs, as well, far more than the average or even average
above-average dog.  /smile/

Even after I had figured out what I was dealing with in my poodle creature,
I was continually amazed as we moved through training how much she had
picked up in our early work about how to handle situations even before I
"trained" her how to handle them in harness.

I've heard a couple of people mention observing that sort of thing in their
program-trained dogs, as well.  Our dogs just keep in learning things we
don't even know we're teaching them through working with us.  Pretty cool
critters! /grin/

On the flip side, as an owner-trainer preparing the dog for extraordinary
places and situations you're likely to encounter at some time in the future,
that can get to be a bit more adventure than you realized it would be.  Or
it was for me.  I would start by taking the dog on leash while I used my
cane to explore and let her watch me solve the O&M problems while she tried
to explore the smells and people and other distractions -- or while the
other people and distractions tried to explore her.  I have an odd enough
sense of fun and adventure that I can't say I didn't enjoy myself in a way,
but I would come home and collapse in a boneless heap hoping to never have
to move -- or think! -- again.

But by the time I would approach the same place again with Mitzi in harness,
most of what I had to do was reinforce her approach to guiding me.  Well,
and keeping her on track despite the distractions and sniffing
opportunities.  /smile/

Which is why I always say, "Um....." a lot when people ask me how much time
I put into guide dog training....  If I break it down technical in a proper
trainer fashion, the answer is embarrassingly little.  If I add in all the
ground work and o/c and reinforcement interaction -- even things like
playing on the playgrond equipment, which Julie suggested to me back when --
it was all day every day for 19 months, and most of the time I was planning
the next little phase while I training the foundation behaviors for it, or
while I ate or while I was dozing off before falling asleep to dream about
training....  /lol/  Every now and then I would tell myself it was really,
really time to keep a journal, only it seemed I was too busy to even set one
and would fall asleep before I figured out what happened that day in the
first place.  Sometimes I feel like I'm still trying to figure out what
happened!  Which is really odd, since it is also clear that things went
pretty much according to plan, including the end result.

Next time, I will have my journal set up *before* I get the dog!

Tami Smith-Kinney

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Tracy Carcione
Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 10:30 AM
To: nagdu at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nagdu] Puppyraising for owner training

I was around when Paul Gabias was raising a puppy to train as his guide,
although I didn't know Paul at that time.  But I got the impression that
he socialized the puppy by, as much as possible, taking it into his normal
situations.  He worked in the City; he brought the puppy to the City.  He
worked in a classroom; when the puppy was well-enough trained to be calm,
he brought her into the classroom. That kind of thing.
It seems to me that kind of thing should work pretty well.  School
puppyraisers have to socialize their puppies to all kinds of situations,
because no one knows who the eventual partner will be, or what that
partner will do.
But, if I'm raising my own puppy to work for me, I know my situations
pretty well, and I can concentrate on them.  I can make a special effort
to touch on unusual situations, just so they're not totally foreign, but
I'd think mainly I could stick to my usual stuff, more or less.
Is that so, or am I all wet?
Tracy



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