Puppy Swap for Success

Different raiser, different house, different routine—it’s a puppy swap! SSD Lucky spent a week with puppy raisers Revenda and Brian Bierley to broaden his experiences. These puppy swaps are an important part of Lucky’s early socialization, helping him learn to work with other people and settle in to a new environment. After all, he’ll one day live at our kennel during the week while he’s in advanced training, and then he’ll ultimately go live with his new partner.

Revenda chronicled Lucky’s time with them:

“When he arrived, SSD Lucky was extremely excited to find SSD Russet, a 16-month-old golden retriever, waiting to show him the ropes. Their first introduction was typical: a lot of circling and sniffing. Lucky quickly became Russet’s sidekick and they enjoyed a lot of playtime. On occasion, Lucky’s energy surpassed Russet’s patience, and Russet took refuge in a quiet corner of the house.

Lucky’s first outing occurred the second day of his puppy swap when he visited the Carlisle Library. The library is a great place to take young service dogs in training because it offers a wide array of opportunities to practice newly learned cues along with new experiences.

Lucky practiced down-stays in the book aisles and went under chairs and tables. We also found some unique surfaces for him to stand on, practiced walking on stairs, and every worked on his elevator skills. Lucky will practice these behaviors in many different environments as he continues his journey to become a service dog.

He did such a lovely job practicing his newly learned cues at the library that we added a short walk around town. We kept the walk short, but it gave him the opportunity to experience the noise of traffic, crossing a crosswalk, and walking up cement steps.

On Friday, he went swimming with Russet. They enjoyed romping around the pool, chasing each other, and retrieving toys from the pool. Lucky quickly found his inner water dog and is well on his way to becoming an accomplished swimmer.

On the weekend, Lucky went on an outing with Russet. We took both dogs to Kohl’s, where Lucky (and Russet) practiced loose leash walking, down-stays, and “under.” This time, Lucky has the added distraction of working in close proximity to another service dog in training. This was a very successful outing, and Lucky was unfazed by Russet.

Toward the end of our time at Kohl’s, two small children asked to say hello to Lucky. He did a nice job keeping all four paws on the floor, even as his little tail was wagging a mile a minute.*

On Monday, Lucky went on one more outing with us before his scheduled return to his raiser. He was a rock star at T.J.Maxx. For a 3-month-old puppy, he showed off some impressive loose leash walking. I heard multiple people commenting on how well he was doing. We also took the opportunity to practice “under” and down-stays, as well.”

It sounds like Lucky gained some valuable experiences! He’ll continue to build skills like these over the next 15-18 months.

*Note: Even though the public is not supposed to pet service dogs, we train all of our dogs to be able to handle greetings. They’re trained to keep all four paws on the floor and stay focused on the person holding the leash. It’s all part of their training to ignore distractions.

Help build a new training center for our dogs in training! Donate here: https://www.crowdrise.com/susquehanna-capital-campaign