The Advantage Behind the Disability
After years of living with a disability, and training my own service dog to assist me in daily pain management, I decided it was time to turn my own disability into a strength, and a way to bring hope to others facing mobility disabilities. Unlike most dog trainers, who are healthy and fully-abled, I face many of the same limitations that my clients face, which makes me unique. Many trainers have one way to teach, and they stick to it. If you can't conform to their ways, they lose patience with you, or worse, turn you away. There are many healthy trainers all over the world who work at programs to train service dogs, or have independent businesses where they offer classes to potential owner-trainers on how to train a service dog. While those trainers are qualified, experienced, and can help you have an amazing service dog, they won't ever fully understand your needs, concerns, fears, hopes, and struggles as a disabled person training a dog, the way that I can understand.
What I Understand as a Disabled Person & a Dog Trainer
- The desperate motivation for training a service dog for yourself or someone in your life
- How much hope & faith you're putting into this mission
- The concept of having limitations that prevent even the simplest of actions
- The guilt you face on days when you just don't have the energy to work with your dog, or your pain/illness interferes with training
- The worry you experience over not doing enough or losing progress if you put yourself first one day
- The doubts that haunt your mind on your bad days, that tease you each time you and your dog face a setback, and that make you question your confidence
- Your need for creative training methods that work within your limits
- The struggle to balance taking care of yourself, taking care of the dog, putting the dog first, staying calm & confident, pushing through pain/illness flare ups, and being the "face of service dog teams everywhere" each time you do public access
Beyond the Dog Training, I Care About You, as the Handler
Whether you are disabled or healthy, you will be treated equally, with patience and compassion. I've designed every course to take the time that each individual team needs to learn the material and fully succeed. Training is not rushed here. If you train with me, you will gain more from the experience than learning how to train your dog. Throughout training, I will help you, as an individual, learn...
- How to balance pain or fatigue with training requirements
- How to set up a daily schedule that works for you
- How to fit your dog's training, games, and exercise into your daily routines
- How to break up training into more manageable sessions for yourself
- How to hold and use a leash to maximize efficiency and communication, while minimizing flare risk to yourself
- Alternate ways to exercise your dog depending on your condition, each specific day, and weather restraints
- Alternate ways to train that works for you
- A better sense of when to push through and when to take a break
- How to train your dog while resting yourself at the same time
- How to have faith in yourself and your team
- How to speak up for what you need from me long term & moment to moment in sessions
- How to advocate for your space, your dog's space, and your right to medical privacy while keeping cool and friendly
- Self-discipline, accountability, confidence, and time-management that all have the potential to be applied to other areas in your life un-related to dog training