Dog Lovers Group Community Group
This group is open for people that like dogs, have dogs as pets, work with dogs etc.
Hi-its been a long time since I've been here-I hope everyone and your pups are doing well. I have a question. I suffered a fall last spring and now have a mild TBI. One of my biggest problems is dizziness-especially when moving my head or body position, and moving my eyes up and down. I would like to teach my dog Maia (mostly black lab, but something else mixed in too) to pick up things that I drop-keys, remote, or any other things. The thing is, she is not a dog who likes to play fetch or things like that. She does play with a stuffed animal (which will be replaced by Santa), but that's about it. She is very bright, and does well with her commands like sit, down, stay, leave it, etc. She doesn't do real great with come, but we're working on it. She will be 4 in March. Does anyone know how I might teach her to help me? I have been unemployed since May 2008, and the prospects don't look very good out there (I'm also 60 yrs old, which makes it harder to be hired), so I can't afford to go to a trainer. But I know the dizziness, balance issues may be with me permantly, so I would at least like to try and see if she could help me. Thanks for your help, and God Bless. Kathy
I'm sorry I didn't see this post until now. I wish I could help you with this question, but I know absolutely nothing about training a service dog. I'm sure if you did a google search for "training a service dog" you could find some tips though. And maybe someone else on here knows something about it.
Sorry, wish I could be of more help.
Good luck with this!!
Hugs, Donna
i have done some looking, as i would like to do the same thing with my dog he is 9 or 10 years. anyway, i was looking some time ago and found that if you make a game about it, it helps and drop your book or other thing and have your dog come to where it is and tap it. it works with my dog most times and try droping some toys to and have your dog hand them to you. my dog has gotten this much faster than picking up other stuff.
you might be able to have a trained dog come in to your home and stay as you finish its training for the blind. we have a group that trains dogs for the blind, but they need someone to get the dog used to life and all its diffrent ways. the dogs have been tought to pic up stuff and open doors and all stuff you can think of and it cost nothing. you might want to look in to it.
hope this helps :)