How Our Program Works
Our program is built around the AKC CGC titles. Every dog that comes into program must pass all three titles being evaluated by a third party trainer before they can become fully trained service dogs. In this unique way each dog, no matter the tasks, actually begins the program in the exact same format. We are doing early socialization into the testing standards to set each dog and handler up for success. This also allows us to do a “career change,” for the dogs should we need.
We can easily change task work and add or drop tasks for the handlers making our dogs very adaptable. If you look at Moochie’s Story, you can see how we were able to take her from a Visual Support service dog into a Psychiatric service dog. Our foundations are the same for each dog setting them on the path to help a variety of handlers should the need arise. The program is set up in three phases of work for the trainers to accomplish the titling and task work customized to each handler we have.
Phase One
Our dogs begin program with a heavy emphasis on early socialization and what that means to us. We want dogs that can be in any environment and remain neutral. We get our dogs out in public safely and start showing them the world. It is a fun process to make sure our puppies get in town each day and see something new. Its extra challenging to make sure we watch body language and help to make sure each experience is a good experience for our babies.
Puppies will be learning all the basics and graduating those basics to harder and harder environments until we finally get to the test day. During the training they are also learning about house training and being well behaved in the home. We teach kennel training, leash walking and basic commands such as sit, stay, come, down, load up, kennel, heel or with me and learning how to properly greet dogs and other humans. This work for each dog is about one to two hours of active training each day. The rest is passive in that we are learning how to exist in a world that is made for humans. Our trainers are also evaluating during this period to gauge which tasks each puppy may already have in their disposition. They are taught to work with the dogs and not add any conflict to a behavior that may be useful later down the road. A dog that is jumping naturally is a good example. We don’twant to punish that behavior because later down the road we may need a dog to turn on lights or run to get meds or a phone off the counter. We can’t be telling the dog “No jumping up,” when later we will have to re-teach that behavior to get a task. Our prerogative as a program is to redirect and work with that behavior until we can put it in on command for that dog.
Phase 2
By this time, we should have dogs that enjoy going out in public each day and are building their skills to be outstanding and so well behaved. A big part of the work we do in this Phase is acclimating all those behaviors that we learned in the last Phase to even busier environments and developing impulse control in the dog. We continue working on heel, solidify our sit and down, lengthen our stay in both the sit and down position, continue proper greetings, amp up our recovery time when distracted or startled, get loading and unloading from a vehicle under control, work heavily on handler focus and continue building these dogs into Service Dogs.
Our dogs will continue to build up their skills for tasking during this time. AAC (Ans Angels Coalition) trainers will have the dog’s tasks working and integrating them into public. This way we can start customizing the task work to your specifically handling needs while we work them in public.
Phase 3
Our trainers work heavily with our new handlers to start the transition process. We are still spending the 200 hours over the next 16 weeks in active training with each dog and our focus turns to the final transition and title to put on the dog. Ans Angels Coalition will put in 3 tasks to each Service Dog that goes from our program, and this is the phase where we really refine those tasks and make sure they are operable in a busy environment. Remember that if your dog is on the “Service Dogs for Sale,” page they must complete phases one – three.
Task work
The absolute best part of this program is that we customize everything. Our PTSD dogs do not have to all be trained to the same tasks. Our multi purpose dogs are there to be customized to anything that the handler needs. We do not do our program to force task work on the handlers just because that is what most dogs do for that disability. We want our dogs to help our handlers and enhance their lives to the highest standard. Below, you will find a list of task work that can be applied to each dog. We will train four tasks to each dog as a program because that satisfies not only ADA law but most state law as well for task work needed for a service dog.
What Kind of Service Dogs do we train?
It is important to us to stick with training only the kinds of dogs we have experience working. This allows us to set the program and our clients up for success. The program has 10 years of experience in training these specific types of dogs. Our program specializes in four different types of services dogs. Our flagship dog, Moochie, was a visual support service dog. We love to focus on working most in that category because we know it is so hard to get support from the guide dog community if you don’t meet the stringent requirements to qualify. The main focus of our program will be to work with visual support clients. We will fill in the gaps with other training for the other types of dogs needed but we would love to focus on the visual support work.