Should I Use a Head Collar on my Dog?

When you see our dogs in advanced training, you may see them wearing a Comfort Trainer, which is a type of head halter or collar. The Comfort Trainer can be a valuable tool for people who have service dogs, especially if they do not have the strength to handle a bigger dog in some situations. In those situations, the Comfort Trainer helps keep the person safe while they work with their life-changing service dog.

However, it’s important to remember that a Comfort Trainer or other head collar is never a replacement for training good loose leash walking. A dog that walks perfectly on a loose leash while wearing a head collar must also walk perfectly on a loose leash with a flat collar.

For example, our director, Nancy, took SSD Meade to the Highmark Walk for a Healthy Community last Saturday, and she decided to use a Comfort Trainer, even though Meade doesn’t usually wear one. She had been having some walking issues, but finishing the entire 5K Walk was important to her. She knew that the Walk would have lots of distractions for Meade and he would want to pull even though he’s normally good at loose leash walking, so she introduced the Comfort Trainer for her own safety.

By the morning of the Walk, Meade had adjusted to the Comfort Trainer, and he did a great job staying right by Nancy’s side for the entire 5K!

However, when Nancy and Meade did a meet & greet later that day, she decided not to use the Comfort Trainer, and something strange happened. Meade started pulling. He had no self control. The next day, Nancy took Meade back to the same location, using a regular flat collar, and Meade did wonderfully, even though there were more distractions than the previous day.

So why did Meade, who is normally very good at loose leash walking, pull so hard after the comfort trainer had come off?

The answer, Nancy believes, lies in teaching the dog self control.

At SSD, we work really hard to teach our dogs to have self control. They must wait at their food dish until they’re released to eat. They must walk through a doorway, turn around, and look at us rather than simply charging through. They must ignore food dropped on the floor, stay calm while being petted, and never jump on friends and visitors. One of our puppy raisers’ biggest jobs is teaching self control.

The hardest lesson in self control is loose leash walking. It requires constant vigilance and consistency. Dogs must never be allowed to pull. We start training loose leash walking when the dogs are just puppies, and we continue working on it for their entire lives.

If a dog pulls, a head collar of any kind never fixes the problem. A head collar will help keep you safe if you have a serious physical issue, but it will never teach your dog loose leash walking or self control. When Meade wore the Comfort Trainer for the Highmark Walk for a Healthy Community, he didn’t have to exercise self control to stay by Nancy’s side. Once the head collar came off, he decided that he still didn’t need to use self control, so he pulled and pulled during the demonstration.

If you need to use a head collar for safety reasons, make sure to practice loose leash walking with a flat collar in easier places. The goal is to train your dog so that he or she has the self control to walk on a loose leash attached to a flat collar. If loose leash walking is very challenging for your SSD dog, please talk to us or to one of our wonderful puppy raiser mentors. We’re happy to help.

National Train Your Dog Month

When the weather turns cold, and you and your dog are spending less time outside together, it's the perfect time to teach your dog new tricks and behaviors. The Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT) has selected January as National Train Your Dog Month.

Training your dog is a wonderful way to build the bond between you. We use clicker training to train our service dogs, and it's fun for us and the dogs. Our dogs love when the clickers and treat pouches appear.

Clicker training uses positive reinforcement. The click of the clicker marks a very specific behavior, and the dog immediately gets reinforced for it, usually with a piece of food. The dog will then repeat that behavior in the hopes of receiving another click and treat. Using this method, it's very easy to quickly shape a behavior that otherwise may take months.

Once a week in January, we will be posting a new training exercise for you and your dog to try. Although today's training tip is appearing on Wednesday, future tips will appear on Tuesday.

Dog Meal Time: Teaching Self Control

Most of the dogs we train are labs, and as you may know, labs are motivated by food. They love to eat almost anything they can get. At meal times, they have a tendency to dive head first into their food bowl, only coming up for air once the bowl has been licked clean.

One of the very first things we start teaching our puppies is self control, which may be the most important skill a service dog can have. We start teaching self control with the food bowl.

At meal times, all of our dogs must sit and stay (uncued) until the full food bowl is placed on the ground. They must then continue to sit and make eye contact with their handler until given the cue "okay, " which releases them to go eat.

Watch the video of SSD Thunder demonstrating self control around the food bowl. If you watch closely, you'll see his eyes flick upward toward his handler right before she gives him the "okay."



How to Train It

1. After you put food in your dog's bowl, stand and hold the food bowl in front of you. Without using any words, wait for your dog to sit. This may take a while, but your dog will sit eventually.

2. Slowly lower the food bowl to the ground, but be ready to pick it up again if your dog moves toward it. If your dog moves, simply pick up and hold the food bowl until he's sitting again.

3. Once the food bowl is on the ground and as soon as your dog pauses momentarily, say "okay" and let your dog eat.

4. Gradually increase the amount of time that your dog waits before you give him the "okay" to eat. Eventually wait for your dog to make eye contact before saying "okay."

If your dog manages to get to his food bowl before you give him the okay, do not punish him. Simply try again at the next meal and make sure you're faster at picking up the food bowl when he moves.

Be patient and don't try to push your dog too fast. This can be difficult for him, especially if he's used to diving right into his food bowl. It will probably become easier after about five days. If you're consistent and keep at it, you'll soon have a dog that will sit and stare at you while his food sits right in front of him.

Happy training! Let us know how your dog is doing in the comments.

Watch Service Dogs-in-Training Demonstrate Their Skills

In a previous post, we talked about the basics of our 12-month evaluations for the dogs. During these evaluations, we focus on getting a good sense of the personality of each dog - learning who they are and how they respond to different situtations, including stressful ones. We ask the dogs to perform several tasks, such as basic obedience, recalls and shaping skills.

Our puppy raisers are responsible for teaching the dogs many of these skills and behaviors. We have several videos of dogs-in-training demonstrating the types of skills and behaviors we require in our service dogs.

Shaping Skills
We use shaping to train our dogs to do many of the behaviors they'll use as service dogs. The goal of this particular session was to get SSD Sunshine to put her foot on the upside-down food dish. Her handler starts by clicking her for looking at the food dish, then stepping toward it, touching it with her paw, and finally, placing her foot on the food dish. If you'd like to read more about the basics of shaping, read Clicker Training: Shaping a Behavior.

Take It
Many times, service dogs will need to pick up objects that their partners may have dropped. In this video of the Take It game, the dog receives a click and a treat for going to pick up one of the objects.

Self Control
Self control is extremely important in a service dog. We don't want our service dogs to give in to their every whim, sniffing and chasing after everything they find interesting. If a service dog gets distracted by everything in their environment, they won't be able to assist their partner.

One area where we train self control is at meal time with the food bowl. Watch SSD Thunder demonstrate his self control. His handler waits until he sits calmly before putting the food bowl down. Then Thunder must wait to eat until he receives the "okay" cue. We usually wait until the dogs makes eye contact with us before releasing them to eat. Even though Thunder's head is bent toward his food dish, notice how his eyes flick upward just before he gets the "okay."

These are just a few examples of the skills of a service dog. Coming next week, we'll share a post about balance dogs.