Susquehanna Service Dogs' Team Training: Learning to Work Together

After spending about 18 months with their puppy raisers and another 6-8 months in advanced training with our professional trainers, SSD Cobalt, SSD Kingston, SSD London, and SSD Outback are ready to work. These four dogs have been working with their new partners in Team Training since Monday.   During the first day of Team Training, we spent the morning talking about the process of Team Training and Susquehanna Service Dogs and learning about clicker training and shaping (our training methods). And then after lunch came the moment everyone was waiting for. It was the moment when each person gets their dog for the first time. It’s one of our favorite parts of Team Training.   Our volunteers and trainers brought the dogs in one at a time. As the dogs came in, they made a beeline for their partners, and their tails were wagging so fast they were just a blur. Watch how happy Kingston is to greet his new partner.   To help the dogs learn exactly who they need to pay attention to, we had each person give their dog lots of treats during this first meeting. After each team had a chance to start bonding, we began working on basic cues, such as the dog’s name, sit, down, and come.   For the first week of Team Training, our teams learn several new cues each day. We also practice behaviors like getting in and out of a car, using an elevator, going to a restaurant, and handling greetings with all kinds of people.   Today is such a beautiful day that we spent most of the morning outside. Each team worked on loose leash walking through the grass and then went through several cues, including sit, down, stand, and pressure (the dog lays across the person’s legs), and up.   Today is also the first time that each person ate lunch with their dog. To get ready, we practiced the cue "under," where the dogs go under the table and lie down.   Over the next week and a half, our service dog teams in training will take their new skills out in public. We’ll visit the local malls and have lunch in restaurants and food courts, and by the end of the two and a half weeks, each person will be well prepared to take their public access test with their service dog.    Each team is doing great! We're looking forward to the rest of Team Training!