Dinner with the Dogs

Sixteen dogs, over 25 people, countless dishes of delicious food - do you think it's possible for all of that to be in one room without mishaps?

We think so. In fact, we know so.

On Wednesday evening, we held our annual Dinner with the Dogs. Puppy raisers and the dogs-in-training met in the big conference room at Keystone Children & Family Services so the dogs could practice table manners during a meal. We hold a potluck-style dinner in the conference room rather than go to a restaurant so we have more control over the environment and can set the dogs up for success.

The food was delicious, and the dogs did a wonderful job! During the meal, you wouldn't have known that there were 16 dogs in the room. The dogs lay under the table and practiced becoming "invisible." Even the young puppies did a great job - which in turn means that their puppy raisers are doing great!

When we're teaching table manners, we often wear our treat pouches or keep a cup of kibble at the table, so we can reward the dog for good behavior. If the dog is in a nice, quiet down-stay, we will reinforce that behavior by giving him a treat. Because there were so many other distractions at our Dinner with the Dogs (smell of food, lots of people and dogs), our puppy raisers used power treats like cheese whiz, chicken, and hot dogs.

Check out these photos of some of the dogs and their table manners:

Nubble's Watery Adventures

In our last Nubble post, we mentioned that he and his puppy raisers were going to Ocean City. Everyone had a blast!

The drive down was very uneventful - which is a good thing! It means that Nubble has very good behavior in the car. Although, his puppy raiser is glad that she drives a minivan, because Nubble is just too big to fit comfortably in a Volkswagen Beetle or a Mini Cooper! Once they arrived, Nubble settled right into his new environment. He had no problem sleeping in a temporary home - no barking at all!

Nubble went on lots of walks during his weekend at the beach. Because dogs aren't usually allowed on the beach at Ocean City, Donna and her family checked in with the lifeguards so they would know that Nubble is a service dog-in-training. The lifeguards were very nice, welcoming him onto the beach. Nubble went for his walks early in the morning to avoid the hot sun and sand.

He loved the waves! Donna put him on a six-foot leash, and all Nubble wanted to do was swim! He kept splashing over and under the waves and running in circles. As they were walking down the beach, Donna's feet kicked up little puffs of sand in the water. Nubble tried to pounce on this strange thing until he figured out it was just sand. He also liked the seagulls. He didn't chase them, but he did stare intensely at them. The sandpipers were a little different. Donna used the sandpipers to practice leave it with Nubble.

By the end of each day, he had sand, sand, and more sand in his fur. His puppy raisers hosed him off outside, and even though he wasn't too keen on the cold hose water at first, he soon settled down and got some good practice standing still while his puppy raisers rinsed him off.

He encountered several dogs that weekend and behaved fairly well. He's still working on the concept that not all dogs are play things, though. When he and his puppy raisers were walking on the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk, another dog came up behind them. Because it was behind them, Donna didn't notice it, but Nubble sure did! He tried to jump for the dog and almost knocked Donna over. When they came across the same dog later, though, Nubble completely ignored him. Donna has learned that she needs to be extremely alert to everything in the environment and to keep Nubble focused on her if there is any chance that he might bolt.

The boardwalk was also great exposure for Nubble because he was around so many people. He took a little while to settle, but once he did, he did great. Whenever Nubble goes somewhere, he always needs a few minutes to settle in, but once he does, he's able to get down to business and work. Later on the boardwalk, he got to enjoy an ice cream cone. Even though he has only had ice cream cones twice before, he knew exactly what was coming when he saw that Donna's kids had ice cream cones. He loves this tasty treat!

They had the opportunity to practice stairs again. Because stairs are so challenging for Nubble, Donna takes every opportunity she can get to practice going up and down stairs with him. He still wants to rush up stairs, and it's difficult to get him to go slowly, but he does go up the stairs now. While they were practicing, though, Nubble backed out of his collar! Luckily, he headed for the beach. Then his recall kicked in, and he came back to Donna when she called him.

He went to Grotto Pizza with his puppy raisers, and did a fantastic job! He did under, and laid under the table for most of the time. He did try visit (putting his head in Donna' s lap) to get attention, but soon he figured out that it was time to relax under the table, and he settled down. Donna was able to eat with the leash nice and loose because Nubble was doing so well.

Nubble does extremely well with certain cues. On the last day, his puppy raisers packed up and put his crate in the car. Then, while they were in the condo, Donna's kids gave Nubble the kennel cue, which is the cue for him to go into his crate. Well, even though his crate was packed away in the car, he knew what to do. He went right over to the spot where his crate had been all weekend and laid down!

Back home, Nubble's water adventures weren't over. The Northeast Division went on an outing at the lake at Bear Creek Camp. Wow, did the dogs have fun! Nubble swam with his buddy SSD Graham. These two dogs' swimming styles couldn't be more different! Nubble swims with his head close to the water, while Graham looks like he's swimming standing straight up! All of the dogs - Nubble, Graham, Slate and Sky - played a lot of fetch. Naturally, they all slept well that night!

Graham's puppy raiser is now raising SSD Burnaby, one of our new puppies from Pacific Assistance Dog Society. Nubble had a chance to meet this little black lab, and she is probably the youngest puppy Nubble has ever met. At first, he did well greeting her, but then all of the dogs got to be too much for him so Donna took Nubble away from all the distractions to calm down. Then, taking their time, they tried greeting Burnaby again. They let Burnaby come to Nubble and made sure he didn't try to rush at her. By the end of the greeting, Nubble was making great progress in how to properly greet a young dog.

Nubble had his evaluation, and he is doing very well for his age. (He's now eleven months old!) The evaluation helped Donna identify areas where Nubble needs some practice and areas where he's doing well.

We'll have more about Nubble soon!

The Gemstones Puppies Continue Their Journey

Tonight, the Gemstones puppies are joining their puppy raisers! Taz, Aqua, Topaz and Opal will don their purple SSD service dog-in-training harnesses and begin learning the skills they'll need to assist their future partners.

You've probably noticed that there are a few puppies missing from that list. Amber has traveled to Pacific Assistance Dogs Society (PADS), where she'll join their program. The Gemstones' mother, SSD Pearl, originally came from PADS, and we have an agreement with them to exchange puppies.

But what about Coral and Diamond?

We believe that Coral and Diamond will be much happier as beloved family pets than as service dogs, so we have released both puppies from our program.

Not every dog is suited to service dog work, even though they may be wonderful dogs. (And Coral and Diamond are definitely sweethearts!) When puppies come to the kennel before they're placed with their puppy raisers, they go through temperament testing to make sure that life as a service dog is a good fit for them. In this test, we look at 40 different traits in the puppies.

Dogs that will be most successful and happiest in our service dog program have a moderate amount of energy, and they display confidence in a variety of different situations. During the test, the puppies are exposed to different surfaces, sights, sounds, loud noises, things they can chase and retrieve, and other dogs. We look for puppies who recover quickly when startled or excited. A dog will undoubtedly encounter things that startle or excite him, but it's the dog that can recover quickly and refocus that will make a good service dog. We also dress the puppies in their harnesses and watch their reactions, and look at how well the puppies cooperate with their handlers during the test. A puppy that wants to do what its handler asks will have a greater chance of success as a service dog than a puppy who would rather investigate all of the interesting distractions.

This temperament test gives us a fairly clear picture of each puppy's personality and helps us decide whether service dog work is right for that dog. For Coral and Diamond, service dog work might not be a life that makes them happy and is best for them.

When we release a dog from our program, we find permanent homes for them where they will be happy and loved. We're currently looking for forever homes for Coral and Diamond, and we're sure that they will be very happy with their new families.

Each Gemstone is moving on to the next stage of their lives. For Coral and Diamond, they're heading toward lives as beloved family pets. For Amber, she's embarking on her service dog journey with Pacific Assistance Dogs Society.

And for Taz, Opal, Aqua and Topaz, they're beginning their journey as Susquehanna Service Dogs, learning to change lives.

Whatever Happened to the Rock and Roll Stars Puppies?

Where are the Rock and Roll Stars puppies now?

Jagger, Hendrix, Dylan, Grace and Zappa are almost 14 weeks old, and they're happily learning everything they can about the world with their puppy raisers.

On Wednesday, they had their last early socialization puppy class. When puppies first join their puppy raisers, they attend early socialization classes with their littermates. These classes are as much for the puppy raisers as they are for the dogs. Puppy raisers have the opportunity to ask questions and learn tips and tricks for training the dogs.

In this last class, we practiced loose leash walking, where the dog walks calmly next to its handler without pulling. The leash must be nice and loose. Loose leash walking involves a lot of self control, which is one of the most important things a puppy raiser can teach the dogs-in-training.

Why is self control so important? Imagine a balance dog assisting his partner to walk through a parking lot. The partner is holding on to the leash and the balance harness that the dog is wearing. Suddenly, the dog smells something wonderful in the grass three feet away. He dashes over and plasters his nose to the spot. His partner is yanked sideways and falls to the pavement. At the very least, she is bruised and may have difficulty getting back up, especially because she now needs to convince her dog to abandon the interesting smell and return to her side. She could also have a broken bone, or worse.

A dog with self control would have ignored the wonderful smell in the grass. He would continue to walk calmly beside his partner, assisting her safely across the parking lot.

Self control extends to more areas than just loose leash walking. Dogs must have self control around food, at doors (waiting calmly and not dashing through), around other people and animals, etc. In this last early socialization class, however, we focused on just loose leash walking.

First, we had each puppy demonstrate loose leash walking with their puppy raiser. The pups all did very well!

In this video, SSD Grace walks next to her puppy raiser on a nice, loose leash. Notice how she focuses on her puppy raiser. At one point, she turns and looks at one of her littermates, but instead of lunging toward him, she demonstrates wonderful self control and looks back at her puppy raiser.



Here, SSD Jagger walks on a loose leash. Look at that attention! He doesn't take his eyes off his puppy raiser.






While one puppy was demonstrating loose leash walking, the other puppies had the opportunity to practice down-stays, meaning they relax in a down. SSD Dylan gives a nice down-stay while he waits his turn to demonstrate his loose leash walking skills. To keep him focused and to reward him for such good attention, his puppy raiser gives him treats.




After each puppy demonstrated loose lease walking, we had the puppy raisers exchange puppies. Now the puppies had to do loose leash walking with an unfamiliar person! The reason we had them swap puppies is because the pups will eventually have someone else training them. When they go to advanced training, they'll have a new trainer, and eventually, they'll be paired with a partner when they become service dogs - all different handlers who will have slightly different ways of asking the puppies to do the same thing. The puppies need to be able to adapt to different handlers.

The Rock and Roll puppies did a great job! In this video, SSD Zappa walks nicely on a loose leash. His attention is on his handler, even though she's not his usual puppy raiser. Notice how Zappa gets a little excited near the end of their loop around the room and jumps on his handler. She does a great job resetting him. She simple backs up until Zappa is back in position for loose leash walking, and then they move forward again. After they've taken a few steps, she clicks and treats. We call this the "penalty yards" method of training loose leash walking. As soon as the dog starts to pull, or in this case, jump, the handler backs up until the dog returns to its place at the handler's side. Once they've taken a few forward steps on a loose leash, the dogs gets clicked and treated.




SSD Hendrix settles right in with his new handler. He walks on a loose leash right past his brothers and sister and completely ignores them.




The next time the puppies come to puppy class, they'll be joining the rest of the dogs in training. We're sure that both puppies and their puppy raisers will be well prepared to join the regular classes. Send them some good wishes in the comments!

The Gemstones Puppies Go Shopping!

Aqua, Amber, Coral, Diamond, Topaz, Taz and Opal didn't really go shopping. But they did go to the mall!

Today the puppies went on one of their first public outings to the Colonial Park Mall. Our trainers, the puppies' breeder caretakers and several of our wonderful volunteers each took a puppy and walked around the mall. Even though the puppies are only seven weeks old, it's important for them to have early socialization with new people and to visit many new environments. Sometimes new people and environments can be very scary for dogs, so we make sure that the puppies have plenty of new experiences so they learn to adapt quickly and easily. Once they become service dogs, they'll find themselves accompanying their partner to all sorts of different places, and they need to be able to continue to assist their partner no matter what situation they're in.

The Gemstones puppies seemed to have a blast in the mall. The puppies probably greeted every person who was in the mall today - great experience for the pups! Normally, you shouldn't just stop and pet a working service dog or service dog-in-training, especially without asking first. However, for this particular outing, we wanted people to pet the puppies. We invited everyone to stop and pet them.

In addition to greeting people, the puppies encountered stairs, ramps, and loud noises. In this video, SSD Amber (red collar) walks up the steps.



SSD Taz and his handler found a photo booth at the mall, and Taz had no trouble walking through it to reach his handler on the other side.



SSD Diamond checks out the kid cars.




SSD Aqua walks on a loose leash.




SSD Opal has a great time exploring the mall. Check out her smile!




SSD Topaz takes a quick look around.




After taking care of an itchy spot, SSD Coral heads over to greet more people.

The Gemstones Puppies Meet Their Dad

The Gemstones puppies met their dad, SSD Fire!

Before the puppies were allowed in the main yard with Fire, they played in their own small fenced in area.




Once the puppies were settled outside, we took one puppy - Topaz - into the main yard to meet Fire. Fire sniffed at him, but didn't really seem all that concerned or interested in him, and we brought the rest of the pups in.



Soon the puppies were running and playing with each other.



Although Fire didn't really seem interested in playing with the puppies, SSD Cabo, the other dog that the puppies' breeder caretaker is raising, loved to play with them. When he lays down, all the puppies gather around him, sometimes snuggling with him, sometimes playing, and sometimes even play-biting his tail. Cabo never loses patience with them, and if they sometimes bite his big fluffy tail too hard, he gently lets them know.



Coral, Opal, A!qua, Topaz, Taz, Amber and Diamond certainly enjoyed their playtime outside!

Nubble's First Camping Trip

For a dog that loves to swim and go hiking, a week of camping is a dream vacation. Nubble went on his first camping trip to Seneca Lake at Sampson State Park in the Finger Lakes Region of New York last week and loved every minute of it!

Before Donna and her family left for their camping trip, she was a little concerned about how Nubble would handle it. He loves to play with other dogs and gets very distracted by them, and she knew that there would be lots of dogs at the campground. But even though Nubble tried to pull Donna toward every dog the first night, he realized that dogs were just another fact of life and calmed down. He may be starting to realize that every dog is not a playmate. He still barked once at the dogs walking by, but other than that, he made great progress.

Sometimes it's tough to sleep in a strange place, but Nubble had no problem. Donna put his crate under the overhang of their tent, and he settled down nicely. The first night he was a little concerned because everyone stayed up late and was making noise, but with all the swimming, walking and other excitement during the day, Nubble was ready to sleep at night.

Just because Nubble was on vacation doesn't mean he had a break from his training. In fact, vacations like this are the perfect time to practice because there are so many new distractions. Nubble went on lots of walks with his puppy raisers, and there were plenty of opportunities to practice leave it - other dogs, butterflies, kids on bikes, frisbees... When Nubble saw a group of people playing frisbee, he really wanted to join them. He soon figured out that leave it also applies to human toys, even if they look suspiciously like dog toys.

If you've been following our posts about Nubble, you probably know that stairs are a huge challenge for him. Well, at the campground, he got lots of practice. There was a long flight of steps leading down to the swimming area and playground, and Donna and Lindsey walked him up and down many times to get him comfortable with stairs. Donna wanted to walk the gorge at Watkins Glen, and there are over 800 steps going up! She wanted to make sure Nubble would be able to do it.

And he did! Their trip to Watkins Glen was a success! All those stairs had him pretty excited, though. He would look at the next flight as if he wanted to bolt right to the top. He managed to contain himself, though. By the end, he was so tired that he wasn't even thinking about rushing up the steps! They took the path for most of the way down rather than the stairs, but when they did take the stairs, Nubble walked nicely next to Donna.

Watkins Glen has a waterfall, and Donna wasn't sure how Nubble would react. He loves water, and she was afraid he would try to jump in! He seemed to understand that the waterfall wasn't something he could play in.


The next day they went to Taughannock Falls. This trip, however, was a different story. Because this was a challenging outing for Nubble, Donna packed plenty of power treats to keep him focused on her. Well, Nubble got into the treat bag and ate all of the power treats before they even got to the Falls! All Donna had left was kibble - not tasty enough to make Nubble ignore all of the wonderful sights and smells, and definitely not tasty enough to compete with the lure of the water next to the path. They did find a can of Kong treats, though, which helped a little bit. But Nubble just kept pulling and pulling. Finally, Donna gave him to Lindsey for a while. She used the Kong treats and took him down near the water. As soon as Nubble was walking by the water, he was a completely different dog, walking nicely beside Lindsey.

Nubble loved swimming at the campground. The lake was very calm the first two days, but then the water got choppy. At first, Nubble just watched the waves, not exactly sure if he wanted to have anything to do with them. But of course, he was soon diving into the waves and jumping over them!


By the end of the week, Nubble was exhausted! The car ride from New York was the longest drive he had done since he traveled all the way from Maine when he was eight weeks old. (Nubble originally came from Maine. He's named after the Nubble Lighthouse there.) He had done great on the ride to New York, with lots of water and breaks. On the ride home, he was even better. He slept the entire way!

Back home, it was time for a vet visit for his nine-month x-rays. When the dogs are nine months old, they get x-rayed to make sure that their bone structure is good enough for them to continue in our service dog program. If a dog has problems with their bones, such as hips or elbows, we will not place them with a person. It wouldn't be best for the person or the dog. This vet visit was well-timed, because Nubble had picked up a hotspot on his neck and the vet was able to treat it when he came in for his x-rays. And when the vet weighed him, he weighed 66 pounds! Quite a big boy!

This weekend, Nubble is off to Ocean City, MD! We'll have more about his beach trip next week.