D*g Calls 911

Bridget,
How do you train your kitties to become service animals? What kind of
purrsonality do you look for?
Christine
"Bridget" wrote in message
news47jd.303737$wV.6220@attbi_s54...


wrote:

William Hamblen wrote:

Cats are too small. How many small dogs do you see trained as
service animals?

Small dogs make good seizure alert dogs for one. I have a friend who
has seizures who has two dogs trained as seizure alert dogs. The prime
requirement for them is that they can sense when a seizure is coming on
and alert her so she knows she needs to find a sitting position that is
safe. She doesn't have violent seizures, so she just needs to know when
not to fall so she doens't hurt herself, although the dogs are trained
to go get help if she tells them to go get help - usually her husband.
Not all dogs are able to sense seizures coming on, but the ones that
can, can usually do so up to 20 minutes ahead of time. It is pretty
remarkable to see, especially from the time they notify her of an
impending seizure to the 20 minute wait for the seizure to actually
happen. And it always does.

Small dogs are also good for hearing dogs. Another friend of mine is
almost totally deaf without her hearing aids. She relies on her dog to
tell her when someone is at the door, the phone is ringing, the smoke
alarm is going off, or a kitchen timer has rung. That dog will stop at
nothing to get her attention to the noise and each noise has a different
behavior, so my friend knows immediately what noise she missed. When
the phone is ringing, her dog runs back and forth from her to the phone
and jumps on her each time, the kitchen timer makes him run in circles,
a knock on the door gets really really loud barks and he runs back and
forth from her to the door and the smoke alarm will make him jump all
over her while running back and forth to and from the door.

So, big dogs are a must for some service animal positions, but small
ones are just as good in others and cats work just fine in some too. I
even remember seeing a show where a cat was trained to help someone who
was hearing impaired by doing things like running back and forth from
the person to the phone and sitting on the phone and running back.

I know it might seem like I know a lot of people with service animals of
various sorts, and I do. But it is because we all knew each other and
all discovered the laws about service animals from each other a little
at a time. I got the ones about not having to ask your landlord about
permission to have them, my friend with seizures got the hospital
prepared to have service animals in the hospital (I majorly benefitted
from that), we all found out you can train your own animals and so did,
my hearing impaired friend found out about how to fly on planes with a
service animal and we have shared freely with everyone we know in the
community, so there are probably more service animals here per capita
than other places. By this point in time, we are all experts in the
laws, federal and our own state as well as good at training and helping
others train by giving them tips. And we all have really well behaved
animals that are well socialized that everyone comments on. Which is
what a good service animal should be - well trained enough to stand out
from other animals. One of my pet peeves is someone who only halfway
trains their animal, calls it trained and then uses it as a service
animal by taking it into restaurants or other public areas where it
misbehaves or doesn't exhibit exemplary behavior. When one of my cats
go into the hospital with me, the staff love the cat because he does
what I tell him to do and he is sweet and loving and doesn't try to
escape from the room, even if the door is left open for an extended
period of time (a psychotic patient once went into my room, let the
STripey Thing out of his kennel and then left the door to the room open,
some time later, I walk to my room to get something, see the cage empty
and panic until I see my Stripey Thing under my bed as far away from
prying hands as he could get. It never occurred to him to leave). That
is what I mean by well trained. And now I will step down from my soap
box. I kind of got sidetracked there.


It depends on the service. Maybe a cat wouldn't be a good *guide*
animal,
as in guiding a blind person. But there's no reason a cat couldn't be
trained to do all sorts of things. Look at Bridget's cats.

It's true that it is much more in the nature of dogs to want to please
their pack alpha, so it's easier to train them to do stuff. But I've
read and seen tv shows about people training cats, and it can be done.
If you can train a cat to use and flush a toilet, you can train it to
be an emotional-therapy cat!

Joyce

Bridget,
How do you train your kitties to become service animals? What kind of
purrsonality do you look for?
Christine
"Bridget" wrote in message
news47jd.303737$wV.6220@attbi_s54...


wrote:

William Hamblen wrote:

Cats are too small. How many small dogs do you see trained as
service animals?

Small dogs make good seizure alert dogs for one. I have a friend who
has seizures who has two dogs trained as seizure alert dogs. The prime
requirement for them is that they can sense when a seizure is coming on
and alert her so she knows she needs to find a sitting position that is
safe. She doesn't have violent seizures, so she just needs to know when
not to fall so she doens't hurt herself, although the dogs are trained
to go get help if she tells them to go get help - usually her husband.
Not all dogs are able to sense seizures coming on, but the ones that
can, can usually do so up to 20 minutes ahead of time. It is pretty
remarkable to see, especially from the time they notify her of an
impending seizure to the 20 minute wait for the seizure to actually
happen. And it always does.

Small dogs are also good for hearing dogs. Another friend of mine is
almost totally deaf without her hearing aids. She relies on her dog to
tell her when someone is at the door, the phone is ringing, the smoke
alarm is going off, or a kitchen timer has rung. That dog will stop at
nothing to get her attention to the noise and each noise has a different
behavior, so my friend knows immediately what noise she missed. When
the phone is ringing, her dog runs back and forth from her to the phone
and jumps on her each time, the kitchen timer makes him run in circles,
a knock on the door gets really really loud barks and he runs back and
forth from her to the door and the smoke alarm will make him jump all
over her while running back and forth to and from the door.

So, big dogs are a must for some service animal positions, but small
ones are just as good in others and cats work just fine in some too. I
even remember seeing a show where a cat was trained to help someone who
was hearing impaired by doing things like running back and forth from
the person to the phone and sitting on the phone and running back.

I know it might seem like I know a lot of people with service animals of
various sorts, and I do. But it is because we all knew each other and
all discovered the laws about service animals from each other a little
at a time. I got the ones about not having to ask your landlord about
permission to have them, my friend with seizures got the hospital
prepared to have service animals in the hospital (I majorly benefitted
from that), we all found out you can train your own animals and so did,
my hearing impaired friend found out about how to fly on planes with a
service animal and we have shared freely with everyone we know in the
community, so there are probably more service animals here per capita
than other places. By this point in time, we are all experts in the
laws, federal and our own state as well as good at training and helping
others train by giving them tips. And we all have really well behaved
animals that are well socialized that everyone comments on. Which is
what a good service animal should be - well trained enough to stand out
from other animals. One of my pet peeves is someone who only halfway
trains their animal, calls it trained and then uses it as a service
animal by taking it into restaurants or other public areas where it
misbehaves or doesn't exhibit exemplary behavior. When one of my cats
go into the hospital with me, the staff love the cat because he does
what I tell him to do and he is sweet and loving and doesn't try to
escape from the room, even if the door is left open for an extended
period of time (a psychotic patient once went into my room, let the
STripey Thing out of his kennel and then left the door to the room open,
some time later, I walk to my room to get something, see the cage empty
and panic until I see my Stripey Thing under my bed as far away from
prying hands as he could get. It never occurred to him to leave). That
is what I mean by well trained. And now I will step down from my soap
box. I kind of got sidetracked there.


It depends on the service. Maybe a cat wouldn't be a good *guide*
animal,
as in guiding a blind person. But there's no reason a cat couldn't be
trained to do all sorts of things. Look at Bridget's cats.

It's true that it is much more in the nature of dogs to want to please
their pack alpha, so it's easier to train them to do stuff. But I've
read and seen tv shows about people training cats, and it can be done.
If you can train a cat to use and flush a toilet, you can train it to
be an emotional-therapy cat!

Joyce

*delurk*

Have been wanting to ask you, is there an organization that certifies cats
like there are schools for dogs. I had 2 different dog guides, and a kitten
that came to me a year ago would have been perfect for this work. I told DH
that if I couldn't find him a home that at the end of the week I was going
to start looking for such a group. It turned out he found a perfect home
and helped a resident cat so he is doing his calling, Lee.

*relurk*
Bridget wrote in message
news:5Wvgd.331139$3l3.233233@attbi_s03...


Jeanne Hedge wrote:

I wish there were kitty service animals who could do things like
this... Are there? Or are felines too independent to make good
service animals? (though the Power of Purr is a pretty good service in
and of itself)

Cats may not be able to be trained to dial 911 in an emergency, but they
can definitely be trained as service animals. I have two that are
trained as emotional assist service animals and one that I am training.
The training involves being crate trained, leash trained, learning to
tolerate being held as much as *I* want to hold them and not squirming
to get down when they want, playing games to entertain me like fetch and
chase the pretty dot, being accustomed to strangers since I take them
with me to the hospital when I need to go in, sleeping where *I* want
them to sleep on the bed, not running out of ANY open door - so if I put
one of my cats in the bedroom and went in and out of the door with it
opening and closing, they would not try to get through the door unless I
left it open.

Obviously not every cat would be able to do all of these things. It
requires the right temperament as well as a fair amount of intelligence.
My first cat ended up trained just because he was there and was
perfect. I didn't choose him for the purpose, he was given to me five
years before I ever used him. But when I needed him he was just perfect
already so I knew what I needed any other cat to do. My second cat I
picked based on temperament as a 12 week old kitten - it was a bit iffy,
but I did okay. He was trusting enough to let me hold him on his back
and rub his belly, he was playful and seemed bright. Without some of
the training he probably would have been a bit more aloof than he is,
but he had enough of the right characteristics that it worked out okay.

The newest addition to the family was older when I got her - 8 or 9
months and so her personality was more developed and hence I could tell
more. Right now I am working on teaching her her name and the concept
that the closer she is to me, the better off she is. She loves to be
held, but is just as happy laying around by herself. I am trying to
condition her to come up and ask to be held by holding her as much as
possible so that she comes to want it. I figure she'll be trained in
about 8 or 9 months. She already has some of the things I want like not
going though a door I don't want her to go through and not having a fear
of strangers.

So cats can be service animals, it just depends on what you want them to
do. Some cats can be trained to help the deaf in their homes to alert
them to sounds like the phone and the door and fire alarms. Mine are
accorded all the rights a seeing eye dog has. I can take them in
public, I can take them into the hospital with me (one at a time), if I
really wanted to deal with it and train them for it, I could take them
into restaurants with me, I can take them onto planes and not have to
keep them in a carrier or pay extra to have them with me - done that, it
was really nice.

Lest you think my cats do nothing but work their butts off, all of mine
are asleep in their hidey holes after a hard mornings work of playing
with pompom balls and fake mice. They wouldn't know what to do if they
couldn't crowd me out of the bed and they fight with each other to see
who will win the right to be held the longest. They just don't see it
as work. They see it as they trained me, I think.

Just thought the perspective would be interesting.

Bridget

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/10/29/can....ap/index.html


Dog saves woman's life by calling 911
Friday, October 29, 2004 Posted: 7:26 AM EDT (1126 GMT)


RICHLAND, Washington (AP) -- Leana Beasley has faith that a dog is
man's best friend.

Faith, a 4-year-old Rottweiler, phoned 911 when Beasley fell out of
her wheelchair and barked urgently into the receiver until a
dispatcher sent help. Then the service dog unlocked the front door for
the police officer.

"I sensed there was a problem on the other end of the 911 call," said
dispatcher Jenny Buchanan. "The dog was too persistent in barking
directly into the phone receiver. I knew she was trying to tell me
something."

Faith is trained to summon help by pushing a speed-dial button on the
phone with her nose after taking the receiver off the hook, said her
owner, Beasley, 45, who suffers grand mal seizures.

Guided by experts at the Assistance Dog Club of Puget Sound, Beasley
helped train Faith herself.

The day of the fall, Faith "had been acting very clingy, wanting to be
touching me all day long," Beasley said Thursday.

The dog, whose sensitive nose can detect changes in Beasley's body
chemistry, is trained to alert her owner to impending seizures.

But that wasn't what was happening on September 7, and Faith
apparently wasn't sure how to communicate the problem. During
Beasley's three-week hospital stay, doctors determined her liver was
not properly processing her seizure medication.






Jeanne Hedge, as directed by Natasha

============
http://www.jhedge.com

*delurk*

Have been wanting to ask you, is there an organization that certifies cats
like there are schools for dogs. I had 2 different dog guides, and a kitten
that came to me a year ago would have been perfect for this work. I told DH
that if I couldn't find him a home that at the end of the week I was going
to start looking for such a group. It turned out he found a perfect home
and helped a resident cat so he is doing his calling, Lee.

*relurk*
Bridget wrote in message
news:5Wvgd.331139$3l3.233233@attbi_s03...


Jeanne Hedge wrote:

I wish there were kitty service animals who could do things like
this... Are there? Or are felines too independent to make good
service animals? (though the Power of Purr is a pretty good service in
and of itself)

Cats may not be able to be trained to dial 911 in an emergency, but they
can definitely be trained as service animals. I have two that are
trained as emotional assist service animals and one that I am training.
The training involves being crate trained, leash trained, learning to
tolerate being held as much as *I* want to hold them and not squirming
to get down when they want, playing games to entertain me like fetch and
chase the pretty dot, being accustomed to strangers since I take them
with me to the hospital when I need to go in, sleeping where *I* want
them to sleep on the bed, not running out of ANY open door - so if I put
one of my cats in the bedroom and went in and out of the door with it
opening and closing, they would not try to get through the door unless I
left it open.

Obviously not every cat would be able to do all of these things. It
requires the right temperament as well as a fair amount of intelligence.
My first cat ended up trained just because he was there and was
perfect. I didn't choose him for the purpose, he was given to me five
years before I ever used him. But when I needed him he was just perfect
already so I knew what I needed any other cat to do. My second cat I
picked based on temperament as a 12 week old kitten - it was a bit iffy,
but I did okay. He was trusting enough to let me hold him on his back
and rub his belly, he was playful and seemed bright. Without some of
the training he probably would have been a bit more aloof than he is,
but he had enough of the right characteristics that it worked out okay.

The newest addition to the family was older when I got her - 8 or 9
months and so her personality was more developed and hence I could tell
more. Right now I am working on teaching her her name and the concept
that the closer she is to me, the better off she is. She loves to be
held, but is just as happy laying around by herself. I am trying to
condition her to come up and ask to be held by holding her as much as
possible so that she comes to want it. I figure she'll be trained in
about 8 or 9 months. She already has some of the things I want like not
going though a door I don't want her to go through and not having a fear
of strangers.

So cats can be service animals, it just depends on what you want them to
do. Some cats can be trained to help the deaf in their homes to alert
them to sounds like the phone and the door and fire alarms. Mine are
accorded all the rights a seeing eye dog has. I can take them in
public, I can take them into the hospital with me (one at a time), if I
really wanted to deal with it and train them for it, I could take them
into restaurants with me, I can take them onto planes and not have to
keep them in a carrier or pay extra to have them with me - done that, it
was really nice.

Lest you think my cats do nothing but work their butts off, all of mine
are asleep in their hidey holes after a hard mornings work of playing
with pompom balls and fake mice. They wouldn't know what to do if they
couldn't crowd me out of the bed and they fight with each other to see
who will win the right to be held the longest. They just don't see it
as work. They see it as they trained me, I think.

Just thought the perspective would be interesting.

Bridget

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/10/29/can....ap/index.html


Dog saves woman's life by calling 911
Friday, October 29, 2004 Posted: 7:26 AM EDT (1126 GMT)


RICHLAND, Washington (AP) -- Leana Beasley has faith that a dog is
man's best friend.

Faith, a 4-year-old Rottweiler, phoned 911 when Beasley fell out of
her wheelchair and barked urgently into the receiver until a
dispatcher sent help. Then the service dog unlocked the front door for
the police officer.

"I sensed there was a problem on the other end of the 911 call," said
dispatcher Jenny Buchanan. "The dog was too persistent in barking
directly into the phone receiver. I knew she was trying to tell me
something."

Faith is trained to summon help by pushing a speed-dial button on the
phone with her nose after taking the receiver off the hook, said her
owner, Beasley, 45, who suffers grand mal seizures.

Guided by experts at the Assistance Dog Club of Puget Sound, Beasley
helped train Faith herself.

The day of the fall, Faith "had been acting very clingy, wanting to be
touching me all day long," Beasley said Thursday.

The dog, whose sensitive nose can detect changes in Beasley's body
chemistry, is trained to alert her owner to impending seizures.

But that wasn't what was happening on September 7, and Faith
apparently wasn't sure how to communicate the problem. During
Beasley's three-week hospital stay, doctors determined her liver was
not properly processing her seizure medication.






Jeanne Hedge, as directed by Natasha

============
http://www.jhedge.com