Onyx's Travels

Onyx loves playing in the snow, and we wanted to share this video that her puppy raisers took after the big snow storms.

These past few weeks, Onyx has been a rambling dog. She went to Cashtown, PA with her puppy raisers Mark and Carol for the Mysterious Journeys Weekend - a weekend of touring the locations of the Ghosts of Gettysburg episode of Mysterious Journeys on the Travel Channel. Onyx spent the weekend at the Cashtown Inn, and she was such a good girl! During dinner, her puppy raisers put her in her crate to relax, but while the speakers were presenting, Carol took the opportunity to practice hand cues. Onyx did great, and she stayed quiet for almost the whole time! Carol used power treats - chicken (one of Onyx's favorites!) and hot dog pieces.


Onyx didn't go with Mark and Carol on the actual tour, but on Sunday of that weekend, she got to play with the Cashtown Inn's dog, Barnum. The owners of the Inn closed off the tavern room so the dogs could play without getting into too much trouble! Carol took advantage of the situation and practiced recalls with Onyx. You may remember from our first post about Onyx that when she's playing with other dogs, she tends to ignore the cue to come. Well, at the Cashtown Inn, Carol had Onyx's favorite treat - cheese whiz - and Onyx responded every time Carol cued her to come! Of course, Barnum usually came too, once he found out there was cheese, but it was a definite success for Onyx.

This past Saturday, she went on the puppy outing to Chocolate World. Knowing that this would be a challenging experience for the dogs, Carol brought the cheese whiz. Onyx was perfectly fine in the parking lot. In the building, she handled the stairs and rotating floor with no problem. But when it came to getting on the car for the ride, Onyx wouldn't do it. SSD Rossi demonstrated how to get on the car, but Onyx still didn't want to do it. Carol and Mark took her outside to relax, then came back to try it again, but she still didn't like those cars.

Even though Onyx balked at actually getting on the ride, she still got good experience being at Chocolate World. She had to go through the turn stile and walk past all the free candy samples Hershey gives away, and she had no problem with either of them. She did fine in the Hershey store and completely ignored the other SSD dogs, keeping her attention on Mark, Carol and the cheese whiz. Chocolate World was very stressful for her, but she still got some good practice. In the photo below, Onyx is the one eating the cheese straight from the can.


From Sunday to Thursday (today), many of our puppy raisers have swapped puppies. This is a great experience for both the puppies and the puppy raisers. The puppies have to adjust to the ways of a new household and family, which is something they will eventually need to do once they become service dogs. It also gives them experience with different handlers, who might ask for behaviors in different ways. For the puppy raisers, it gives them an opportunity to work wtih another dog. They suddenly have a new puppy with a different personality and behaviors, and the training plans and style they use with their puppy might not work with the new one. they'll have to think outside the box. When the puppies return to their usual homes, puppy raisers usually have lots to share.


Mark and Carol swapped puppies with SSD Sienna's puppy raisers. Sienna is a yellow lab and Onyx's sister. So far, Sienna has had several new experiences - meeting new people and dogs and learning to go up longer flights of stairs. She even went to a tour guide meeting and did great! "It'll be very interesting to see everythign that Onyx has learned when she gets back," says Carol.

Onyx Practices Her Skills

Onyx was working hard on her homework for puppy class this week. At puppy classes, we often give puppy raisers certain skills to work on with their puppy. This past week, the puppies and puppy raisers were given homework to work on visit, leave it with food, down and stay. You might remember from previous posts that Onyx really knows down. In fact, lately she has started to yawn when she goes into a down.

During puppy class, we were working on hand targeting, which means the puppies touch their nose to their puppy raiser's hand. Targeting is an important skill for the dogs to learn. It can be used to teach the dogs to turn light switches on and off and to press the button to open automatic doors, among other things. At puppy class, Onyx seemed more interested in the other dogs than in practicing targeting. Her puppy raisers tried moving her to the corner of the room, and eventually to the hallway, to eliminate distractions. Once one of the trainers came over and started working with her, though, she really focused and did great. She seemed to know that the trainers mean it's time to work.

Onyx does not seem to be afraid of other dogs, which is a good thing for a service dog-in-training. As Carol and Mark were leaving puppy class with her, SSD Stetson and his puppy raiser were coming in. Now, Stetson is our largest dog-in-training, weighing nearly 92 pounds. But his size didn't bother Onyx. She went running right up to him to say hello. When she got a little too enthusiastic, Stetson held her off with his head - a funny sight to see because his head is half as big as she is!

Onyx also got to see her brother Denim again! when these two pups saw each other, they reared up in excitement, ran toward each other and began playing.

Onyx is now practicing loose leash walking every day. While she was in Gettysburg with her puppy raisers, Carol took her for a walk, but Onyx did not do very well with loose leash walking. She didn't want to listen to any of Carol's cues. Carol had to cut the walk short. This particular time, Onyx was not wearing her service dog-in-training harness. Often, the dogs learn that when their harness is on, it's time to work. When the harness is off, they can relax and have down time. When they work on loose leash walking, Carol plans to dress Onyx in her purple harness and see if that makes a difference. Like all skills, loose leash walking is one that requires practice.

This past week, Onyx had some new experiences. The pier behind Mark and Carol's house flooded, and when the water receded, Onyx went down to investigate. There was a large piece of wood floating by the pier. Onyx probably thought the wood was part of the pier because she stepped on it - and stepped off real quick when it moved!

Later, she found some chestnuts floating in the water, and she tried to get one. Carol says she looked like she was bobbing for apples. Onyx seemed to know what she was doing, though, because when her nose was underwater, she blew bubbles. She did eventually get a chestnut, and she carried it around with her.

Read more about Onyx's progress next week.

Two Weeks with SSD Nubble

It has been a fun and busy two weeks for SSD Nubble! He went to the SSD Northeast Division holiday party, where he made all sorts of new SSD friends! Just like most puppies, he wanted to play with the bigger dogs. He seemed a bit intimidated by SSD Slate, a puppy that's about a month older than Nubble. It may be a good balance for Nubble, however, because he tends to dominate Gizzy, his puppy raiser's family dog. But even though he was intimidated by Slate, that didn't stop him from making friends. Donna and Lindsey, his puppy raisers, think he has a crush on SSD Sky, a pretty, black, 13-month-old female. All in all, he held his own, even though he was the youngest puppy there.

On the Saturday after New Year's Day, Donna took him to run some errands. They started at Walmart, which was a real test of Nubble's skills. The place was packed! Even though Donna only needed one thing from the store, Nubble has reached his limit by the time they left. He usually does very well with loose leash walking, but in Walmart, he wanted to chase every little piece of trash on the floor, and he was fascinated by people's shoes. Leave it worked fairly well, but it was still a more difficult trip. However, he did great at the next two stops! At Redner's and Wawa, he sat beautifully next to Donna while she checked out.

Nubble is growing, growing, growing! Donna has 2.5 acres for him to run around, but when they first got him, he could barely make it 1/4 of the way around the property. Now he runs the entire thing! He even found a new toy to play with outside - leaves, especially leaves blowing across the snow.

He is very smart and loves to learn, but just like a child, he'll play and get into trouble if he's left alone. "I really need to stay focused on his training. Otherwise, he just acts like a typical puppy," says Donna.

And Nubble is not a typical puppy. Although he's certainly allowed plenty of play time, he also needs to learn the skills and behaviors that will help him successfully assist his future partner.

In puppy class this past week, the Northeast Division worked on shaping. (To learn more about shaping, read Clicker Training: Shaping a Behavior.) This class was a learning session for the puppy raisers as much as for the puppies. The goal was for Nubble to move a mini-skateboard. To shape this behavior, his puppy raisers started by clicking him for looking at the skateboard, then for touching it with his paw, and finally for pushing it with his feet.

At home later, Donna and Lindsey continued working on shaping with Nubble. He had received a toy plush box from the volunteer leader of SSD's Northeast Division, and Donna and Lindsey used shaping to get him to pull a squeaky toy out of the box. It went well!

This past Saturday, Nubble went with Lindsey to her winter track meet at Lebanon Valley Community College. What a well-behaved boy he was! Donna took the opportunity to work on going in and out of doors. All SSD dogs are trained to wait patiently at the door, only allowed to go through once they get the "go on through" cue. Donna found that even though he was in an unfamiliar place, Nubble had a much easier time waiting patiently at doors during the track meet than he does at home, possibly because there were no other dogs or cats around to distract him.

Nubble was fascinated by the runners and their bright shoes! With runners constantly going past, it was a good opportunity to practice sitting nicely while they went by. Eventually, Nubble got the hang of it, and by the end of the day, he chose not to chase every single runner. However, he did try to take a toddler's toy, and Donna spent some time working on leave it.

Overall, the track meet was a very successful outing. Nubble did great! Many of the adults at the meet asked lots of questions about him. In fact, people seemed to recognize that his purple puppy harness meant that he was a service dog-in-training. Because people seemed familiar with service dogs, they tended not to rush over to pet the puppy - one less distraction for Nubble.

"It makes me feel good when we have a successful day!" says Donna.

Needless to say, Nubble slept very well that night. Instead of whining for a long time when he goes into his crate for the night, now he only whines for 30 seconds before falling asleep. What an improvement!

Look for more about Nubble next week!