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Month: May 2020

Two women kneel outdoors with a black lab in Leader Dog harness between them. They are both smiling. The left woman is wearing glasses. The woman on the right is instructor Ashley

By Guide Dog Mobility Instructor Ashley Nunnelly

I never wanted to be a guide dog instructor. Seriously! That was never on my radar for a career choice. I always loved animals growing up—dogs and horses especially—and was the child that had a strange encyclopedic-like knowledge about dog and horse breeds. If you name a dog breed, I can still give you average weight expectancy, temperament, AKC group, etc. (I was and still am a HUGE nerd). While I loved animals, my main love was the theatre. I was going to be an actress, then a director. Not Hollywood—I saw myself on Broadway. All of my free time from elementary school through high school was spent in rehearsals, voice lessons, building sets, working tech for shows and trying to make myself a less woefully terrible dancer then I am. The amount of show tunes that my poor parents listened to at a full belt in the shower must have caused them to have tap dance numbers all through their dreams. At one point I was fully convinced that I wanted to go to clown school. That’s about the time where my (very practical) dad’s hair started to go grey.

I went to the University of Georgia, and for roughly one semester I was on the pre-vet track. Then Chemistry 2 hit, I received a lead role as a freshman in a UGA Theatre Department play and my mind was made up. Broadway, here I come! So long, science and vet school! The next four years were spent in all theatre classes and rehearsals for department plays, after which I would go to rehearsals for student plays, working as the department’s prop master, the Commedia dell’Arte Troupe and STILL trying to become less of an abysmal dancer.

At the end of my freshman year, I started to see puppies around campus. Puppies in little yellow vests that said “Future Guide Dog” on the side. Those who know me now would be shocked at this, but I was too shy to even approach those girls and ask how to get involved. I thought it was so cool—some elite society that my nerdy self certainly wouldn’t be skilled enough to be a part of. My best friend and roommate, however, was quite different. She marched up to one of the girls and found out the website for where to apply!

Ashley kneels on a dark floor with a white background. She's wearing a black graduation robe. Next to her is a collie in a yellow vest. Ashley is holding her graduation cap over the collie's head.
Ashley and the first dog she raised at her college graduation.

It was December of 2010 when I brought home my first puppy to be raised for Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind (GDF). I was 19 years old. This was the first thing that I ever had to be responsible for on my own and I had NO CLUE what I was doing. Luckily, as all of us puppy raisers know, the puppy raising community for both GDF and Leader Dog is a fantastic place. I had ample support for all my questions and worries, I made friends (who are now lifelong friends) and had the sassiest of sassy collie puppies to basically raise me while I was raising her.

She quickly became a part of every aspect of my world, including my theatre world. She came with me to class and rehearsals, participated in contact improv sessions, hung out with friends with me—she even waited outside in the hallway while I was nervously auditioning for roles in the plays.

When she went in for training at GDF, I immediately brought home puppy number two. As every puppy raiser and client understands, suddenly your world isn’t quite your world unless you have a leash in your left hand and sweet eyes looking up at you. They’re there to be goofy and laugh with, they’re there to get you to play, they’re there to learn and soak up the world while they’re teaching you, and they’re there when you’re sad because maybe you didn’t get that role in the school play that you wanted.

Guide Dog Foundation is located on Long Island, NY and when I received word that puppy number one was graduating, I loaded up and drove 15 hours from Georgia to New York, New York. I made it to Broadway, just not in the way that I originally planned. I caught a show in the city on night one and the next morning I went to “Celebration Sunday” to meet my special girl’s special guy.

Funnily enough, her client is a man in his 50s who lived in Georgia! We sat and talked for hours, and that’s when he told me the words that changed my life.

“I thank you so much for what you’ve done, because she is going to take me everywhere.”

Ashley sitting on grass on a sunny day at Leader Dog's campus. She is smiling and holding a golden retriever puppy wearing its blue Future Leader Dog bandana.
Ashley on Leader Dog’s campus with a Future Leader Dog.

That was it. Now I knew: this was what I was missing. This was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. If me loving a dog could give so much to another person—independence, confidence, freedom—how could I not want to meet more incredible dogs and amazing people? Plus, just the one dog took me all the way to Broadway. Imagine all the places she was going to take him, and all the places that every other dog could take those clients.

I made my way to Leader Dog in 2015, and then I found home. It’s funny, because it is a seriously long way from my original Georgia home and very, very cold!

Leader Dog took the chance on me—a theatre nerd who SERIOUSLY can’t dance—and taught me how to dance with dogs. I have footwork for turns, I have leash cues, I have a clicker that I use to have perfect timing for communication, and I teach my dance partner (the dog) how to be a partner who knows how to take the lead for someone else.

Ashley stands outside on a sidewalk. There is snow next to the sidewalk. She is leaning over a golden retriever in harness and giving it a kiss on the nose.
Ashley with one of her Leader Dogs-in-training working in downtown Rochester.

Right now, I’m in the middle of intense rehearsals. My dogs and I are rehearsing daily. We’re an ensemble working for a common goal. We have to learn each other’s strengths and styles and we have to know how to teach and help each other when we need it. We practice and practice and practice new skills, new scenes, every day working toward that ultimate goal. Then, after four months of practice, it’s show time! Class is here! Clients are here! It’s time for my leading ladies and gentlemen to meet their new partners. All the work that we have put in comes together in class, and the clients take the stage to do their own hard work while I step behind the scenes.

I love what I do. I go to Leader Dog every day to work for an organization that has the most special and exceptional cast members. I meet incredible Leader Dogs and I meet incredible Leader Dog clients. And when I get to watch those dogs take those clients everywhere, it is brighter than all the lights of Broadway.

Photo of a golden retriever whose face is only partly visible with its paw resting in a person's hand. Only the person's hand and forearm are visible

People are spending much more time at home right now, and many have been looking for new activities and companionship. This has contributed to a surge in adoptions of shelter animals and the number of people fostering pets. If you or someone you know is working with a new puppy or dog, this article from Leader Dog’s Coordinator of Prison Puppies Melissa Raymond, LVT, KPA-CTP, may be helpful.

Terminology and phrases such as “cooperative care,” “Fear Free®” and “Low Stress Handling®” are becoming more and more popular in the world of pet lovers. Their meanings are similar despite the difference in wording. When training your dog with cooperative care methods, the goal is to allow your dog to be a willing participant in the process and “say no” if they experience anxiety or stress. You’re training your dog not just to listen to you; you’re also training yourself to listen to your dog.

Let’s explore a scenario where plans might change to work with a dog cooperatively. A team of veterinary professionals are seeing a canine patient with very long nails, the kind that are nearly curling into the dog’s paw pads. The owners do not trim the nails at home because the dog is difficult to control and runs away once the nail trimmers come out of the closet. Though they live close to a groomer and the veterinary office, the dog is afraid of going to both. He whines, wiggles and tries to escape the entire time he is there getting his nails trimmed. His last nail trim was a year ago and for the first time he bared his teeth during the procedure. It took three of the veterinary team members to hold the dog in place while a fourth trimmed his nails.

Now, he is back again, and his nails are worse than ever! This veterinary team knows how important it is to have trimmed nails for any dog. Having long nails can impact the way the dog walks and could cause orthopedic changes in their body. At the simplest level, long nails can cause discomfort. So, the veterinary team has couple of paths that they can take in this scenario. If they were focused solely on the dog’s physical well-being and insist that the nails should be clipped immediately to alleviate physical discomfort, they may attempt to repeat last year’s procedure where it took the three people to hold the dog in place while the nails were trimmed. If the veterinary team’s focus was more on the emotional well-being of this dog and avoiding stress, their goal would be to trim the nails in a way or at a pace in which the dog stayed under the threshold of being afraid.

To stay under the threshold of fear, the veterinary team may need to prescribe medication to decrease fear. They may need to break the aspects of the nail trim down in small pieces to make it a more comfortable experience for the dog, such as having a single nail trimmed each day. The vet team may teach the owner how to prepare the dog for nail trims at home and/or introduce high value treats into the procedure to make it more enjoyable, etc.

The list doesn’t end there. There are lots of cooperative, Low Stress® and Fear Free® methods that can be implemented to make this experience much more comfortable for the dog.

Here are some helpful tips to keep in mind as you train cooperative behaviors with your own dog: everything must be voluntary and completely willing on the dog’s (or any learner’s) behalf. Cooperative behaviors should not include forceful actions. For example: if you are attempting to teach the dog to be comfortable with his foot being grabbed or held in preparation for a nail trim or paw wiping, and the dog wiggles, pulls or jerks his paw back, even just a little, then it is important to make note of this. This is not cooperative. Though it is subtle, the dog is demonstrating to you that there is a level of fear or discomfort present. In order to be successful, you are going to need to do less. Doing less may mean acting like you are going to grab the paw without doing so or holding the paw for a minuscule amount of time before wiggling or jerking begins.

Be sure to mark the successful moment! When your hand comes near the paw or you can hold the paw without the dog wiggling—even for just a second—that’s a success. Communicate to your dog that you like that behavior and you want to see more of it by saying “YES” in an upbeat tone the moment the dog performs the behavior you wanted. Then, immediately follow the “YES” with a treat. In the scenario above, holding onto the paw until the animal stops resisting is not teaching cooperation. That technique could make paw wiping or nail trimming more difficult in the future. Remember that cooperation is all about your dog telling you what they are comfortable with and you listening.

If teaching cooperative behaviors is new to you and your dog, remind yourself to practice short sessions. Learning is tiring for both ends of the leash. Consider setting a timer for 2–5 minutes or whatever short amount of time feels comfortable for you. You can also set aside a certain number of treats for that session. Once your treats are gone, the session is over. Another helpful tip is to practice outside of the context of the necessary situation. For example, if your dog is diagnosed with an ear infection, it would not be the best time to begin cooperative care training for medication application. In that scenario, your dog is already experiencing a level of discomfort. Think of cooperative care as training for the future “what if.” If your dog requires a specific type of care in the future, you and your dog will be prepared to work through the process comfortably.

Cooperative care behaviors can be fun to teach and very useful for anyone training a dog. They ease stress and turn uncomfortable examinations into fun reward-earning games. While they are not always taught quickly, initially, once the basic skills are learned the concepts become faster and faster to grasp. These training games can be enjoyable for the dog and handler alike.