Day Eight: Kisses and Tethering

We went in a little early today to practice with item retrieval. Abbot is doing well with picking up a dropped object and putting it in the box. Now we can start edging the box away from us, so he can get more used to taking the object to a desired location (Si) instead of returning it to us. This has to be done very gradually, say a foot at a time, per practice session.

During Q&A, we talked some more about seizure alert. A lot of our kids have "clusters" of seizures. You have one, then not long after you have another, and so forth. A seizure alert dog most likely will only alert to the first seizure in the cluster. If you remember when I explained the way the scent cells get full of smell and we stop noticing a smell, well this explains why the dog only alerts to the first seizure in the group. Now if the child goes from a small seizure to a big one, they might alert because it would be a more intense smell. One good tip is to air the room out after a big seizure, changing the begging and opening the windows. This will help to get the dog's nose refreshed and back to baseline. Another good piece of info is that, if you change seizure meds, that will change the child's innate smell, so this could throw off the dog's ability to alert until he gets used to the new smell. Jeremy made the point that the bigger concerns are smells that we emanate-- our body chemistry creates them-- as opposed to a change in fabric softener, etc. Jeremy also suggested that if you notice your dog "air-scenting" (putting its nose in the air with its mouth closed) you can "free" the dog and watch where it goes. This will help you make sure you don't miss an attempted alert.

Several people asked about the safest way for a dog to travel in the car. There is a seat-belt attachment you can purchase that allows you to somewhat harness your dog, so that, in the event of an accident, he will not slam into the seat in front of him or be ejected. Jeremy said this is the best restraint for our dogs.

We will learn more about service dog law later, but one question was about pet deposits at hotels. It is illegal to require a pet deposit for a service dog. It would be like asking for a wheelchair deposit from someone in a wheelchair. Now obviously, if your dog causes any damage, you would be responsible for that. But pet fees upfront are illegal for service animals.

Si had a hard time this morning for whatever reason- maybe a case of the Mondays. We used the lap command to help him snap out of his tantrum.

The first new command today was "kisses". This is not one we will be practicing with Abbot, because it looks too much like seizure alerting. But for those of you who would like to use it for fun or for behavioral intervention with your own kids, here is how you do it. You start with some peanut butter on your finger, give the command "kisses", have the dog lick the PB hand, then say "good" and give a treat. You repeat that quickly for about five minutes. Then you would do a session of this every few days, eventually being able to fade the peanut butter.

Tethering-- there are two modes of tethering: stationary and in a heel. Stationary will be used, say, when I am paying at Target. I will put Abbot in a down. Abbot will not move, despite many tugs from Si on his tether cord. We are not to practice this with Si, because we sure don't want to encourage him to tug at Abbot. Mike practiced this as handler while another dad played Si's role. Abbot did really well! The handler gives a lot of good treats during this, so that the dog is super-focused on the handler and doing what the handler wants. :) When we do this in a heel, the rules are the same, but we are walking. Abbot will be watching Mike or I like a hawk, staying right with us in a heel, and Si will be following or next to him. We have a special tethering handle for Si to hold, that keeps him close to Abbot but gives him a feeling of control. Si did not often actually pull at the tether cord when we were walking, as he was working to keep up and hold his handle. They both did great!

Si did not mind tethering at all and Abbot was way into it. Si was super excited because his tether belt is a Superman one with "S" logos on it. It is actually a giant adjustable dog collar! After such a good job, the boys got to take a mall train ride. They were way too interested in the scenery to pose for a picture, but here's what I got!

And here is a family picture of our first tethering outing:

Finally it has been brought to my attention by Mike that most of Abbot's things from 4 Paws say Abbott with two T's. So perhaps his letter of introduction had a typo. Regardless, please feel free to use as many T's as desired. Just don't call him late for dinner, and he should be happy!