IAADP
International Association of
Assistance Dog Partners

Assistance Dog Tasks

by Joan Froling

Pioneers of the assistance dog concept in the 20th century have greatly enriched the lives of thousands of disabled persons worldwide with their discoveries. They devised mutually beneficial ways for assistance dogs and disabled people to work together to overcome or mitigate the difficulties imposed by certain disabling conditions.

Teamwork with a dog schooled to perform useful tasks empowers disabled individuals to function with greater self sufficiency, to prevent injuries, to summon help in a crisis, and to be aware of events in the environment. This report identifies over one hundred possible tasks that guide, hearing and service dogs can master to assist with daily life activities and safety concerns. Today, an estimated 20,000 teams in the USA and thousands in other countries from Europe to Japan to South Africa to Australia and New Zealand are reaping this legacy of empowerment.



GUIDE DOG TASKS

Although it is uncommon to discuss guide dog work in terms of tasks being performed, a guide dog's four to six month education involves mastering a set of tasks which, taken together, allow a blind or visually impaired individual to negotiate the unseen environment with greater safety and independence. One guide dog user of my acquaintance neatly summarized the work performed guide dogs as follows: "Guide dogs take directional commands and institute a path of travel, indicate changes in elevation, indicate and avoid oncoming traffic, navigate around obstacles and locate objects on command.

The human partner makes most of the decisions for the team, giving the dog directions and determining, after listening to the flow of traffic, the most optimal time to cross each street. Guide dogs are carefully conditioned to refuse the "Forward" command under certain circumstances where it would be unsafe to proceed, something termed "intelligent disobedience." A dog does not have the reasoning power to comprehend the inherent danger in traffic. The net effect of the conditioning, however, is a habitual reaction from the dog to specific stimuli which substantially improves team safety. It should be noted this skill deteriorates over time if the handler forgets to appropriately praise the dog for avoiding a situation. Like other assistance dogs, a guide dog relies heavily on the team leader's feedback, especially praise, to reinforce and motivate desired behaviors.

The tasks or duties listed below have been grouped into three primary skill categories. Obstacle Avoidance, Signaling Changes in Elevation and Locating Objects. The majority of guide dogs work through a harness with a U-shaped handle, that attaches to the harness and allows for vertical and some lateral movement. Some but not all may learn to do leash guiding as well. Whenever navigating around obstacles, the dog is schooled to return to the original path of travel as soon as possible. This may include moving into a road to walk around something then locating the safer pedestrian path once clear of the obstacle. Schools in North America vary in how much work is put into the tasks listed under Locating Objects. Some handlers put in extra work on "Find" command tasks with very impressive results. While a few owner trainers and private trainers include retrieving in a guide dog's repertoire, the guide dog schools no longer teach it as a mandatory skill, so it has been listed under the title, "Other Possible Tasks."

OBSTACLE AVOIDANCE

SIGNAL CHANGES IN ELEVATION

LOCATE OBJECTS ON COMMAND


OTHER POSSIBLE TASKS


SPECIAL NEEDS GUIDE DOG

Dogs trained solely for guide dog work are sometimes partnered with deaf blind students or mobility impaired blind students by schools specializing in such placements. In the last decade, some ground breaking experiments have taken place, combining the role of a hearing dog with that of a guide dog for deaf blind students or combining a guide dog's work with wheelchair pulling and/or other service dog tasks. This inspiring research has expanded the frontiers of knowledge as to a guide dog's capabilities and may someday give new options to disabled people with dual impairments.



HEARING DOGS TASKS

Hearing dogs are schooled to alert to the specific sounds needed by their partners, primarily in the home setting. Some hearing dogs also work outside the home, alerting to specific sounds in public settings. Most are shelter dogs who receive three to six months of schooling from providers or dedicated owner trainers on sound alerts, obedience and public access manners.

It is a common misconception that hearing dogs typically alert a deaf or hard of hearing person to sounds by barking at them. Barking or growling is generally undesirable as it may not be heard by the deaf partner, will unnerve or frighten other people and if the handler shows approval, it can easily worsen the dog's fear or over protectiveness, which usually is the underlying cause of this response.

Instead of barking hearing dogs are trained to get the attention of their human partner by touch, (either a nose nudge or pawing) then the dog leads the partner to the source of the specific sound. Some trainers may teach the dog to lie down next to their partner to indicate a smoke alarm after alerting the partner to the event with a touch. Leading the partner toward the sound in the case of a fire alarm may not be safe. For that reason a number of handlers prefer to have the dog indicate the smoke alarm indirectly and to wait for the human to decide what the next response should be. Responding to specific sounds in public or in a moving vehicle also requires a slight adjustment of the customary response to suit the location.

Some hearing dogs master additional tasks, enhancing communication between family members. This can be especially helpful in households with a child, those where more than one member has a hearing impairment or households where one or more members are non verbal.


ALERT TO SPECIFIC SOUNDS AT HOME


ALERT TO SPECIFIC SOUNDS AWAY FROM HOME


OTHER POSSIBLE TASKS



SERVICE DOG TASKS

Service dogs generally receive six months to a year of schooling on tasks, obedience and public access manners. Most dogs placed by non profits since the 1970's have been trained to assist people who have a wide variety of mobility impairments. Some teams have mastered up to fifty tasks, enjoying the challenge of such an advanced education. The list of tasks in this section are a broad sampling of what has been developed over the past quarter century to address daily living needs and safety issues.

A number of the traditional tasks listed below are proving useful to individuals with hidden disabilities such as a seizure disorder, a psychiatric disorder, a potentially life threatening medical problem or conditions which cause chronic pain. Creative providers, graduates and owner trainers who are expanding the service dog concept into these additional areas will hopefully share the experimental tasks they develop with the larger community someday, providing task training particulars so others can benefit. In some cases, a responsible third party, usually a parent or a spouse, facilitates the interactions between a disabled person and his or her service dog to optimize the benefits to be obtained from including a service dog in the independent living plan of that individual.

For specific tasks to address specific symptoms of disabilities like Parkinson's Disease or MS or Epilepsy or any other disabling condition, one option is to research the subject by consulting with training providers familiar with those conditions. A second option is to send out a specific information request on email lists in the assistance dog field, gathering a variety of input. As a precaution, a second query, asking trainers and handlers for recommended ethical and /or safety guidelines in connection with any task being considered, may yield valuable input to assist with assessing the appropriateness of the suggested task for a particular team. A third option is to search archives for newspaper stories, magazine articles, television newscasts and documentaries which may focus on a particular disability or provider or type of assistance dog. Books on training guide, hearing or service dogs, autobiographies, biographies and works of fiction may in some cases, provide additional information on the desired topic.

A myth that ought to be challenged is the belief on the part of some that service dogs are only for the most severely impaired or end stage of a degenerative disease like MS. Someone who is considered much more moderately disabled, struggling with the difficulties of living alone, maintaining a job or raising a family could find teamwork with a highly trained service dog to be of enormous benefit in achieving the goal of remaining as self sufficient as possible. A number of tasks enumerated in this section could empower such individuals to conserve energy, reduce or avoid pain, minimize dependency on loved ones, prevent injuries or get help in a crisis.


RETRIEVE BASED TASKS


CARRYING BASED TASKS (non retrieval)

DEPOSIT BASED TASKS

TUG BASED TASKS

NOSE NUDGE BASED TASKS

PAWING BASED TASKS (some dogs prefer it to nose nudge)

BRACING BASED TASKS (no harness)

HARNESS BASED TASKS - Mobility Assistance
(Only appropriate for large sturdy adult dogs with sound joints, proper training)

OTHER KINDS OF ASSISTANCE IN CRISIS

MEDICAL ASSISTANCE TASKS (Sample)

Comments? Questions? Contact Joan: iaadp@aol.com

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