How to train your own Service Dog - Retrieve The Phone

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By mommyhen42
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Once you have your dog retrieving items you drop or toss for him, you can go on to the next step and begin to teach him to retrieve objects by name. In this article we will be training your dog to retrieve the phone for you. If you are disabled this is an extremely useful task for your dog to learn and can be lifesaving in an emergency!

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Hungry Dog who already knows how to retrieve. See my ehow article below
old phone
tasty treats
clicker

Step 1

Once your dog understands how to retrieve objects as directed, you can begin to give them names. Train one object at a time so as not to confuse your dog. Give him at least a week with one name once he understands it before going on to another named object. This will avoid confusion and help you to know for sure that your dog really understands the name refers to one particular object.
Step 2

Begin with retrieving the phone. Start out with an old cordless or old cell phone that you don't mind gets damaged. Do a couple of standard retrieves using an object your dog already picks up, then drop the old phone onto the floor and tell them to "bring" and reward lavishly feeding several treats in rapid succession and telling him how wonderful he is. Do one or two successes only and stop this session for now.
Step 3

Next session you will begin with the phone but when you drop it for the retrieve you will say "bring Phone" and treat when he hands you the phone. Keep training sessions short and always end on a positive note before the dog is ready to quit. By stopping before the dog is ready you will keep his interest in the training up and he will think about the session between training sessions.
Step 4

Next session drop the phone and only say "Phone" if he retrieves it give a rapid succession of treats and praise lavishly. Do this a few times and end on a positive note.
Step 5

Leave the phone on a table, show the phone to the dog and then walk a few steps away and give your command "Phone" He should then go get the phone from where you showed him and hand it to you. If he does not take a few steps closer to the phone and try again. Always praise lavishly the first time he does what you ask followed by rapid fire treats.
Step 6

The goal here is to ask your dog to retrieve the phone from the location you showed him it was and bring it to you in another room of the house. Do this by using the step above and then increasing the distance your dog has to go from you to get the phone. You can put some sort of scent on the phone, such as oil of peppermint, to aid in having him "find" the phone later or I would recommend that you have once cordless phone that is just for the dog to retrieve for your use. This phone should always be on it's hanger and available to the dog should it be needed, and returned every time it is not in use.
Step 7

Now you will have the dog go from one room to another to retrieve the phone on command, eventually you can be anywhere in the house and your dog will go get the phone for you and bring it directly to you on one command.
Step 8

With patience you may even be able to teach the dog to return the phone to it's cradle. send me an email if you want me to write an article on how to train this.
Step 9

Once your dog is reliably retrieving the phone and you are sure he understands that "phone" means to retrieve ONLY the phone you can name another object in the house and teach him to retrieve that. Before long you can have him cleaning up the house and yard for you by retrieving several objects by name!

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servicedogs said

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on 11/11/2009 Having your service dog properly identified with a service dog ID will reduce conflicts. You can find them inexpensively by just Googling "service dog ID".