INTENTION CANINE

Riff is the male puppy we retained for Service Dog training. He’s happy, confident, interesting in learning new things and is a real people pleaser.

Sit & Sit-up / Paws-up

Lucky for me, dogs are very plastic in their learning. This is probably a contrary comment from the exclusively-positive-reinforcement community that seems to forget that dogs are not like any other species on the planet. They aren’t dolphins, chickens or iguanas (none of which have any need to form tight social bonds with humans.) When I review the video clips that I attempt to capture when playing with the puppies, I hear myself repeating commands, changing the pitch of my voice and even using more than one cue word for a behavior (like in this next clip.) Fortunately, that’s all fixable and most dogs are flexible enough to deal with our imperfections in communication. Maybe they don’t care because they don’t rely on specific verbal utterances to connect with each other.

The “Check-In” sort of dog

I love a dog that feels confident to explore his surroundings, but that also routinely checks in with me.

“Follow and Circle”

Teaching a pup to follow a lure (in this case my hand with a treat), can open up many different options for teaching tricks or tasks. The “Circle” can be employed as a sign / alert to a Service Dog handler for, say, the fact that the dog senses a low blood sugar condition or another oncoming medical event.

Receiving affection

It’s important for a dog to be able to remain calm when receiving affection. I tend to pet pups only if they are sitting.

Riff is available to a future Service dog handler who is seeking a partner for psychiatric, light mobility or physical assist tasks. Please feel free to CONTACT us if you are interested in Riff.