Service Puppies on the Moon

3…2…1…Blast off! 

The seven puppies in Susquehanna Service Dogs’ Astronaut Litter have launched their journey to becoming service dogs! SSD Heide Piper (Heide), SSD Wendy Lawrence (Wendy), SSD Suni Williams (Suni), SSD John Glenn (Glenn), SSD Alan Shepard (Shepard), SSD James Lovell (Lovell), and SSD Neil Armstrong (Armstrong) are with their puppy raisers.

Each small step they take brings them closer to becoming service dogs, and they couldn’t reach their destination without their puppy raisers. For 15-18 months, raisers teach their puppy good house manners, proper behavior in public, and 25 different cues. Our raisers give the dogs the solid foundation they need to become working dogs.

Become a puppy raiser today and help a puppy’s small steps become a giant leap for someone’s independence! 

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.

SSD Holiday Party

The holidays started early for the service dogs. Last week, we held our annual holiday party. Puppy raisers, partners of service dogs, SSD staff, and of course, the dogs got together for food, fun and a little socialization for both people and dogs. What a great time!


We started off the evening with a huge potluck buffet. Each person brought a dish to share. As more people arrived, it became a puzzle to fit all the food on the table - and it was all delicious! While the people ate, the dogs waited under the table or at their handlers' feet. Even the little puppies! A great display of how well our puppy raisers are doing with their dogs.

After dinner, it was game time! The dogs and their handlers got a chance to show off some of their skills in D-O-G. In this game, dogs and their handlers form two teams. The first team chooses a dog to perform a trick. The other team needs to find a dog that can also do that trick. If the other team cannot perform the trick, they get a "D." The goal is to NOT spell the word "dog." We took some videos of the dogs and their handlers playing D-O-G:


SSD Gideon picked a quarter up off the floor. It seemed like this trick was going to be too difficult for the other team to counter. But then SSD Dutch came forward. Instead of picking up a quarter, Dutch picked up a dime!

SSD Midge challenged the other team to perform a "hold." This seemed like a pretty routine trick until Midge's handler revealed the object the dogs had to hold: a hot dog! After Midge held the hot dog in her mouth for a few seconds without eating it, the other team had to find a dog that could do the same thing. SSD Pearl stepped forward, and she held the hot dog, too! Great job, Midge and Pearl!

SSD Graham Cracker was able to step up to the plate when the other team challenged him to walk between his handler's legs and sit.

Even one of the puppies from our most recent litter, SSD Slate, was able to match some of the tricks. When the other team challenged him to do sit-ups (going into a sit from a down position), he proved that while he may be a puppy, he was more than ready for this challenge!

Slate is being raised by a puppy raiser in our Northeast Division. We're very glad they were able to come to Harrisburg to enjoy our SSD party with us!

If you'd like to see photos from our holiday party, visit our Facebook page.

We have a wonderful evening of good holiday fun! If you'd like to join us next year, become a puppy raiser! Applications are available on our website.

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Watch the action on our live video stream at www.pawsabilities.net/live.