From our excellent trainer, Beverli, who is working with Veronica and her son, Isaiah, who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, and their SDIT, “Shaggy!” This was their second training session.
Beverli writes:
“We had our second training session today at Lowe’s. We specifically trained Shaggy’s now quick response to “sit, stay, down” from a walking position. We also worked on extended “down/stay” and “sit/stay” for 6ft+ (I like to challenge the team to do beyond what is necessary for the test). Shaggy’s heeling has made great improvement, as well as his “leave it”.
We also addressed other Service Dog tasks, such as calming Isaiah when he gets overstimulated in public, using the command “check your boy” when he started to get overwhelmed.
Areas that need to be addressed are mother Veronica’s ability to be Shaggy’s leader. She is very soft-spoken, so we will continue to work on it.
Other homework that was given for the next session was: “Stay” while out of sight, “sit while on a walk at random”, and “down on walk, at random”.
