7 Holiday Safety Tips for Your Dog

The holidays can be a time of joy and family gatherings, but they can also be filled with danger and anxiety for your dogs. Here are 7 tips to help you make the holidays fun for your dog as well.

Watch your dog around your tree
Live and artificial trees provide wonderful opportunities to practice the cue “leave it” with your dog! Pine needles, ornaments, tinsel, and lights all pose a hazard if chewed or swallowed. You may want to put treasured or delicate ornaments at the top of the tree. Even if your dog ignores the tree and decorations, their tail can still knock ornaments off the tree, potentially breaking them. If your puppy persists in investigating the tree, you may want to consider surrounding your tree with an X-pen to prevent your puppy from getting near it. Set your puppy up for success!

Keep baked goods and other treats out of reach
Tis the season for baking! Many of us bake cookies and other treats during this time of year. All those delicious cookies are tempting for both humans and dogs! This is another good opportunity to practice good house manners and the cue “leave it.” Keep cookies and baked goods away from the edge of the counter or table, especially if they’re made with chocolate, which is toxic for dogs.

This is also a good opportunity to practice the cue “go to bed.” Asking your dog to lay on a dog bed or blanket while you’re baking or decorating cookies will keep them safe and out of the way.

Limit special treats 
We often eat lots of special foods at the holidays that we only enjoy once a year, and it’s tempting to want to include your dog by getting them some special treats, too. However, your dog’s stomach could become upset if they aren’t used to eating those treats. It’s a good idea to limit the number of new treats you give your dog.

Place candles up high
If you’re lighting candles this holiday season, keep them out of reach of your dog. You don’t want your dog to eat the wax or burn themselves. And don’t forget about wagging tails! Lab tails have been known to clear coffee tables. Thanks to a wagging tail, your candle could end up on the floor or worse, your dog or house could catch on fire.

Practice good greetings with guests
It’s exciting when friends and family visit for the holidays! This is a perfect opportunity to practice good greetings with your dog. Don’t wait until the day of your event to practice. Start now. Practice polite behavior—keeping all four paws on the floor, no barking, self-control—when you knock on the door and ring the doorbell. Ask a friend to help you and your dog practice. And if your dog is just going to get too excited, crate them while your guests are arriving. You can let your dog out once the excitement of new people has subsided.

Also, make sure your guests understand proper greeting behavior with your puppy in training. Let your guests know they can help your puppy learn good behavior by completely ignoring them if they jump or bark.

Put a collar and tags on your dog
If you’re entertaining guests, it’s very easy for your dog to slip out the door when people are coming and going. You also never know if a well-meaning guest will let your dog out to potty, not knowing whether your dog needs to be leashed outside. Make sure your dog is wearing their collar and tags so if they do get out, it’s easier to recover them. If you have an SSD dog, it’s a good idea to add a tag with your contact information, too.

Give your dog a place to relax
All the extra activity and excitement of the holidays can be exhausting for your dog. Give them a safe place to relax. This can be their crate or a dog bed set up in a quiet spot. Make sure your guests understand that they need to respect your dog’s need for space.

Happy holidays to you and your dogs!

Service Dogs in Training Visit Harrisburg International Airport

Fifty of our service dogs in training now know how to fly on a plane!

On December 3, we took our puppies in training to HarrisburgInternational Airport for a training outing. After parking in long-term parking, the dogs and their raisers took the shuttle to the terminal. Once in the terminal, the dogs practiced loose leash walking around the other travelers, as well as taking elevators and stairs.

Navigating stairs and elevators are important skills for service dogs. The dogs need to walk right next to their handler on the stairs. The dog should take the stairs one at a time and not charge to the top or bottom. This skill becomes especially important when a service dog is working with a child or someone with mobility issues. If the dog were to charge ahead, they could injure their partner.

Elevators are equally important. To correctly enter an elevator, the dog must wait while their handler blocks the doors with their body to prevent the doors from closing and hitting the dog. The handler then cues the dog to “go on through.” Once the dog is complete inside, the handler follows the dog into the elevator. We usually encourage our puppy raisers to move their puppy in training to one of the back corners of the elevator to keep the dog out of the way and reduce the risk of the puppy trying to dash out of the elevator doors when the open. Getting off the elevator is a similar process, with the handler once again blocking the door.

Each of our puppies in training had the opportunity to go through airport security and practice getting patted down by a TSA agent. By law, service dogs cannot be separated from their partner, nor can any of their equipment (leash, harness, etc.) be removed. The dogs can be patted down, which can be very exciting for the dogs. Our puppies in training practiced staying focused on their raisers while the TSA agent patted them down.

In the past our outings to the airport usually ended after walking through security. But this time, we got to practice boarding a plane! Thanks to American Airlines, our puppies in training learned how to navigate the aisles of the plane and curl up beneath the seat in front of their raisers. This is such an important skill for our puppies to practice because service dogs can travel in the cabin with the partners. However, they are required to ride in small space at their partner’s feet or under the seat in front of them. This can be challenging for a dog who has never done it before.

Other tips for preparing your service dog for traveling by plane:

Avoid giving the dog food or water before traveling

Give them lots of playtime and exercise to tire them out

Bring something for them to chew on, which will keep them occupied if it’s a long flight

Check out this video from HIA about our adventure!

Thank you to Harrisburg International Airport, the TSA agents, and American Airlines for giving our dogs in training this valuable experience! They’ll be ready to fly with their future partners someday!

Thank You for Donating on #GivingTuesday!

What an incredible day! In 24 hours on #GivingTuesday, you helped us raise $8,963 for vet care for our service dogs in training! Thank you for your generosity!

Your donations will go to work almost immediately. Tomorrow, nine puppies are visiting PETS (Pet Emergency Treatment and Specialities) in Lancaster, PA for their CERF eye exams. These eye exams are important for future service dogs. We need to make sure that our dogs are free from heritable eye disease so they can successfully assist their future partners.

Thank you for making a difference in the lives of our dogs in training and their future partners!

Support Susquehanna Service Dogs on #GivingTuesday

Help us raise $5,000 in one day on #GivingTuesday! 

Susquehanna Service Dogs is participating in #GivingTuesday, a global day dedicated to giving. All of the money we raise that day will help cover the costs of veterinary care for our service dogs in training. Vet bills are one of our biggest expenses. It costs $100 just for each dog's annual check-up! 

How will your donation help?

• $26 covers an eye exam for one 8-week-old puppy
• $52 covers eye exams at 8 weeks and one year
• $90 covers hip X-rays for one puppy
• $100 covers an annual check-up for one puppy
• $310 covers all vet appointments and vaccinations for one puppy's first year

Why should you donate?

It's so important for our future service dogs to be healthy. When we place a service dog with their new partner, we want that dog to be able to work and perform the tasks they were trained to do. We would never want to place a dog that would only be able to work a few years. Neither would we want to place a dog that's going to need extensive vet care. Service dogs should make their partner's life easier, not more challenging. 

That's why we check our dogs' eyes, hips, and elbows, and make sure our dogs get regular vet check-ups. We want our dogs to make a positive difference in their partners' lives. When you donate on #GivingTuesday, you're supporting healthy service dogs who will one day change people's lives. 

Learn more about our #GivingTuesday efforts and how you can support Susquehanna Service Dogs. 

Volunteers Bill and Susan Tyson Receive the Edna Silberman Humanitarian Award

Congratulations to Bill and Susan Tyson! These long-time volunteers recently received Keystone Human Services’ Edna Silberman Humanitarian Award for their volunteer work with Susquehanna Service Dogs!

The Edna Silberman Humanitarian Award is given to a person or persons who has made significant contributions to people, the community, and Keystone Human Services, and has played a major role in making Keystone Human Services’ vision real in the lives of others. As you may know, Susquehanna Service Dogs is a program of Keystone Human Services.

We’re so pleased that the Tysons were chosen to receive this year’s award! They’ve been volunteering with SSD for over 13 years, ever since Susan answered an ad for puppy raisers and started raising her first puppy, SSD Trout.

Since then, she and Bill have been an integral part of our organization. Bill has not only shared his home with many dogs in training over the years, but he has used his skills in building and repairing thing to take care of many of our needs. Just one small example is the ramp he built soon after we moved to our new property. This ramp made it possible so our partners who use wheelchairs could assess our buildings during Team Training. It seems like a small thing, but it made a huge difference. And that’s just one of the things Bill has done for us.

Susan has become one of our biggest champions and she’s involved in many different areas of the organization. Besides raising multiple puppies for us, she helps to educate people and communities about disabilities and the way service dogs can help people live more independently. She’s extraordinarily generous with her time, talents, and gifts.

Thank you, Bill and Susan, for being part of our program and helping to make our mission a reality in people’s lives!

The Girl Scout Puppies: 10 Weeks Later

Guest post by Dana Little, Leader of Girl Scout Troop 11967, which whelped our Girl Scout Puppies

SSD Summit and SSD Scout at their first puppy class

It's hard to believe the Girl Scout Puppies turn 10 weeks old this week. While they have been placed in their newest roles with their puppy raisers and the girls are finishing up their project paperwork, I decided it's my turn to write the last Girl Scout Litter blog entry.

My eclectic troop of 8th graders are at the Cadette level, at which point they can opt to work toward the Silver Award, the second highest earned award in Girl Scouting. To earn this award, each girl must identify a problem in the community, come up with a plan on how to solve it, and the work a minimum of 50 service hours toward fixing that problem. The idea is that through this and the next level in Girl Scouting (the Gold Award), the girls can and will change the world.

When these girls were in 4th grade, we were working on the Bronze Award (precursor to the Silver), and we were introduced to Susquehanna Service Dogs through puppy hugging. The girls absolutely loved this project and we quickly realized the group had a common love for animals.

In late spring, one of the girls came to me and asked what I thought of whelping a litter of SSD puppies as a troop Silver Award project. Whelping a litter consists of taking care of the puppies and their mother from the time they're one day old until they're eight weeks old. In addition, the Silver Award project requires that the project be sustainable and that it have an awareness aspect to it. I had to admit, as overwhelming as it seemed, if it could be done it would be an amazing accomplishment.

Fast forward to September and we have successfully launched into service SSD Scout, SSD Tagalong, SSD Troop, SSD Archer, SSD Samoa, SSD Gordon, SSD Juliette, SSD Savannah, and SSD Summit. (Yes, the girls chose the names. Yes, they are based on the Girl Scout theme, and no, they are not all cookies.) Through this project, the girls have logged over 1,238 service hours; collected 795 items; created 4 billboards, one iMovie, numerous blog posts and social media entries; and even managed to get our little life changers blessed at church. We have one girl raising one of the puppies and three girls who are now SSD-approved sitters. Wow.

Girls, job well done. You have demonstrated a tremendous amount of commitment, responsibility, leadership, creativity, initiative, attention to detail, time management, passion, patience, friendship, love, caring, kindness, thoughtfulness, trust, tirelessness, and perseverance--all with a positive attitude. You have learned many important lessons, including those of life, death, and finishing what you start.

Thank you, SSD staff and volunteers, for believing in and supporting these girls. You took a chance on them, and in so doing, provided them with this amazing opportunity to make a difference. It's an experience they (and I) will remember forever.

If you are thinking about getting involved with Susquehanna Service Dogs, do it. There are numerous opportunities available, including adopting discharged pups like our SSD Samoa who has an eye issue. Not to worry, he will be placed in a caring home and will make a fantastic pet.

To find out more about SSD's work and to continue to follow the journeys of the Girl Scout Puppies, visit Susquehanna Service Dogs' Facebook Page or follow @SSDOGS on Twitter.

Kissing Puppies at Kipona

Guest post by Girl Scout Troop 11967

Greetings from Girl Scout Troop 11967! Last weekend our troop did so many exciting and amazing things! On Saturday, September 3, we went to Kipona in Harrisburg, PA. there we had an SSD kissing booth, which turned out to be a huge hit. Many people came to see the puppies, including the 7-week-old Summer Olympians Litter. We all had so much fun sharing the puppies with the public and spreading awareness about SSD's puppy raiser program.

Later that evening, we had a blessing for the puppies. We took all nine Girl Scout puppies to Grace Lutheran Church in Camp Hill, PA, and each puppy was acknowledged and blessed in the ceremony.