Case Studies

Meet Karma and Her Journey through Service Dog Training Laura got in touch with Fran from Creating Forever Dogs to discuss service dog training even before she got Karma. She wanted to make sure it was the right decision. Training a puppy in basic obedience requires patience, putting in the time, and being consistent. Moving on to training a service dog is a lot more extensive and a continuous process. They discussed the financial, emotional & time commitments required to self-train a service dog and the unknown question, “Would the puppy be a candidate for a service dog?” which sometimes you won’t know for months into the training. “In the beginning, I sat in Fran’s office and was naïve on what was appropriate for a service dog. I didn’t realize what were appropriate tasks and many things I hadn’t even considered. She also reminded me about a dog is still

Case Study: Meet Boo – Rescue Mixed Breed Boo was adopted during the Pandemic of 2020 from a local rescue.  She was adopted by another family but returned 3 days later due to her reactivity.  She was still young, estimated to be about 11-13 weeks old and they chose February 14 as her approximate birthday.  (It’s a great day to choose because then Boo & I share a birthday!) Boo’s new family has two dogs that are regular clients at our Pet Spa; a terrier mix named Jakee, and a Catahoula mix named Sadie.  Boo was adopted for Ryan, their 14-year-old that doing remote learning and just wanted to have something for him to focus on. The first time I met Boo she presented as very reactive towards people and other dogs.  Thank goodness she was food motivated.  We tried classes when she was little—with one other dog but her

Meet Tessa: Cavalier King Charles Spaniel   I met Tessa when she was 9 weeks old. Her mom, Ann was referred by a volunteer I knew from my years at Freedom Service Dogs. Ann wanted to make sure that Tessa was started on the right foot. They had not had a puppy for many years and so much has changed! Our first meeting was typical puppy stuff. Tessa was very wiggly, and Ann was worried about dropping her since she was so tiny. Tessa was a bit bitey and even though she was sweet, she was doing puppy things and it surprised Ann by how crazy she could be. We spoke about crate training, playpen time, outside time, and car travel safety. Specifically, her homework was to work on relationship games including “The Name Game”, “Middle”, “Sit”, and “Touch”. All of these things Ann still works on to keep Tessa