Untitled Document

LEARNING

COURSES LIKE ASSISTANCE DOG TRAINER (SPECIALLY DIRECTED TO HANDICAPPED PEOPLE).

PROGRAMAS SÓCRATES, LEONARDO Y JUVENTUD

Summary.

These courses make capable to train an Assistance dog, they are specially offered to handicapped people, so that at the end of these courses they can work as an expert in this field.

We want to demonstrate the competence of the handicapped people as Assistance dog trainers, the different techniques that they will learn can be also be used in other kinds of dogs like home dogs or sports dogs.

This is possible because of the new training methods (positive conditioning), based in the recompenses, the “clicker” and the observation methods (calm signals).

The Assistance dogs are dogs specially prepare to give aid to physically disabled people. There are three kinds of Assistance dogs: guide dogs (for blind people), service dogs (for people with different physical disabilities) and dogs for deaf people.

The Assistance dogs help to their owners to have more independence in their every day life, when a disabled person decide to have an Assistance dog he chooses a special way to be helped, no by a machine, by a living being. This has double benefits: they must take care of the dog, going every day to the street, with new groups of friends, etc. and the help they receive from the dog.

The disabled person feels better because of the dog accompaniment, he has a more healthy life with more exercise, people approach easily to him when they play with the dog, so the life quality increases and self-esteem increases too.

The training process takes about one year, in this period we teach some abilities that will be useful for the future owner, the dog can be very useful if it can open and close doors, go and take the telephone or the newspaper, awake in the mornings, etc.

The training method is very different from other helping dogs, that’s why a special formation is needed for this kind of training. Until nowadays this training has been done by people that obtained the knowledge by themselves or by professionals in other training fields that used techniques that were not good for this kind of dogs, using physical punishment so that the dogs did things afraid of the punishment and with low motivation.

The new training methods use the positive reinforcement, with the clicker, the dogs language (calm signals), the tellington touch method, etc. These methods are more useful and create a better relation with the dog, eliminating the stress so they only see their work as a game, and a wheelchair user can train perfectly with this method.

While in Europe the Assistance dogs associations are usual and there is a big demand of these dogs (in the United Kingdom there are people waiting for an Assistance dog for deaf for two years) in Spain, until few years ago the only Assistance dogs were the ones for blind people. Since 1999 our association, the Asociación Española de Perros de Asistencia AEPA began to train dogs for other kind of physical disabilities.

Our project aims to prepare people with physical disabilities to be able to train Assistance dogs, this wasn’t possible until nowadays because of the old way of training that needed strength from the trainer (so that he would be able to punish the dog), with the new positive methods no strength is needed, so that weak people (handicapped) can do this job, with the fact that they are the ones that really know what the dogs are going to do.

We give new work opportunities to this group of people, and we also do a sensibilization campaign in the society with this initiative that shows the possibilities of the handicapped people.

In the two years that least the project, we will do four groups of six months each one. Each group will have thirty students, and a non determined number of people in the open seminars. There will be around 120 students, the preference group to receive the courses will be the young people with physical disabilities. The target group are the people with disabilities that want an Assistance dog, dogs trained by other disabled person that will understand better the necessities of the future dog owner.

A trainer can train two dogs each year, so that in two years we can give about 150 Assistance dogs.

The seminars will be given by well known professionals in the area, people that know how to communicate their knowledge and the real problems of the Assistance dogs users.
With this kind of projects we give a professional future to young people (specially the disabled ones), and we do a sensibilization work in the society, that takes care of the existing problem.

All the materials that will be used in the seminars will be selected and prepared carefully, each professional in his area, with his own evaluation method. Their will be data bases of each participant and their progress, we will also ask their opinions to improve the quality.
We will also do reports periodically with the most important aspects of all the process.

Assitance dog trainer - first group