SO, How Successful Was The Above Screening Process In Selecting Trainable Dogs??
The dog was first given a couple or so weeks to get used to living in the new environment. During this time, it is important for the new owner to not begin instilling bad habits by rough play (by owner or children), encouraging the dog to develop bad habits and do limit the number of new people and situations. Work on calmness and normal behavior, and no exciting play, just calm petting and lots of loving praising talk. Lots of GOOD dogs.
If the dog is not yet crate-trained, this is the ideal time to initiate this and to house train the dog with the crate (and if needed) by keeping the dog contained to a small area with tiled easy-to-clean floor surfaces. Some people close off a kitchen with toddler or dog gates. This gives the dog a view and a sense of being part of the family. Don't close the dog up in a bathroom or utility room, or shut him up in the garage.
Use wee-wee pads if necessary and they are made in a variety of sizes and inexpensive in discount stores. There are instructions on how to transition your dog from indoor wee wee pads to going only outside. For dogs who continue to have training problems, this can save a relationship.
But how did the Training go in this study?
Forty of the 75 dogs learned BOTH the obedience and the retrieval tasks in the allotted 5 weeks of training.
And Thirty-three dogs had learned all the obedience tasks in those 5 weeks and had entered the retrieval portion of training but had not reached the success criterion those 5-weeks.
Only two dogs did not complete training because it was later determined that the trainers were at risk of injury because of their aggressive behavior. These were dogs who passed the prior tests, but who apparently had some prior problems or who had problems with the particular training.
73 Dogs out of 75 is PHENOMENAL. WIth carefully screened and selected puppies, you are still lucky to get 50% to grow up and achieve this success in such a short time.
Some dogs completed their obedience traing very quickly, and some a bit slower, but all of these carefully tested and selected dogs trained in a reasonable period of time.
None of these shelter dogs had any prior retrieval training, but again the rates of success were tremendous. Dogs trained to do such things as retrive a critical medication or bring a cellphone or paw at an emergency alert button, or wake their owner or a number of other tasks can be certified as full-fledged Service Dog.
Regardless, any of these dogs that were rescued from shelters on the basis of BEHAVIOR rather than cuteness were universally qualified to become successful "out in public" Emotional Support Dogs.