Junior ABEC student trains dog to be a service animal, and they’re doing it on their own and en français!
By: Ava C. Green, Editor-In-Chief
To become a service dog, our furry friends must go through rigorous training to learn to socialize with passersby, become acquainted with places they may frequent, be able to adapt to new places that they may not frequent and perform specific tasks to aid their owner. It is recommended they spend roughly a year doing approximately 120 hours of intentional training, but it's not required that this training is done with a professional, which potentially costs thousands of dollars. This means that people – like junior Bri Firkowski – with skill, knowledge and patience can get their cuddly companions – like Bri’s dog Jasmine – trained to accompany and assist them throughout the day.
When Bri was told this by freshman Anita Molnar, who grew up in a family of dog trainers and has had a service dog since coming to Canisius, it felt like an undeniable sign that it was about time for Jasmine’s training to commence.
As an Animal Behavior and Ecology Conservation (ABEC) and anthrozoology major, Bri has already spent years learning what it takes to care for an animal. This semester, though, dog training has been on her mind since taking ANZ 219 – Animal Assisted Interventions – with Dr. Cyndi Haist. And when she remembered that Anita’s dog, Tessa, was taught her service commands in a foreign language, Bri realized that the French class she’s also enrolled in would come in handy too.
“It’s really, really common to train a service dog in a foreign language – especially if that's the only language they know. It means nobody can distract them. They can't go, ‘Oh, come here, come here,’ because the dog won't know what that means. They’ll only pay attention to you,” Firkowski said.
Bri rescued Jasmine – a “very squat, very barrel-chested” pit bull mix, she says – about two years ago, when Jasmine was four years old, underweight and debilitatingly shy. Bri says that despite Jasmine’s look and the stigma surrounding her breed, you won’t find a more gentle dog. On top of wanting to train their dog to assist them, she believes that training Jasmine can change people’s limited views of what a service dog can be.
“Some people have that mindset, like service dogs can only be labs, only Border collies, only poodles, German shepherds, Saint Bernards. Seeing a pit bull is out of the ordinary and they'll think you're faking it because it's a pit bull, so it’s even more important that she's well-behaved and will listen to all of her commands,” she said.
Bri knows people can be wary of pit bulls, and even before her training, was putting in effort to make Jasmine look as disarming as she truly is. With a puppy prone to dry skin, Bri has resorted to dressing Jasmine in t-shirts when breakouts hit, stopping the dog from instinctually scratching herself; but Bri says she strategically picks Jasmine’s outfits to include overly-friendly prints and styles.
“It helps make her look more silly,” she continued, “so anybody who's typically scared of pit bulls will go, ‘Oh, my God! That dog has candy on it!”
As Bri has guided Jasmine through these past few months of focused service training, she’s noticed great improvements in their dog’s physical skills, obedience and understanding of the French language. The majority of their practice is done on weekends and at Canisius’ Andrew L. Bouwhuis Library, where she says the staff and students always welcome them. “They'll let me bring her in to work on her getting used to new spaces, because that's her biggest thing,” she said.
Jasmine’s tasks as a service dog will go beyond just being friendly and adaptable, which she already has down. “My main focus with her,” Bri says, “is being able to do DPT, which is deep pressure therapy, where she lays her body weight across my lap or across my entire body when I'm laying down. And it helps reset the sympathetic nervous system and puts my body into rest mode, which allows everything to calm down. It's like a weighted blanket.”
Bri says training Jasmine for this service has been almost too much fun for her dog, who thinks their practice is a game and eagerly wags her tail the entire time. As adorable as it is, Bri has to keep Jasmine from playing while in service mode so she can stay focused on professors in the case that she needs DPT in class. Right now – along with the typical commands like staying, releasing and waiting – she’s also focused on Jasmine's ability to open and close doors, and turn lights on and off when Bri is unable. With the amount of time, effort and progress they’ve both made, Bri is optimistic that Jasmine will meet the requirements to officially be an ADA-approved service dog by the end of next semester.
“Anybody can have a service dog. You don't need to feel like you have a debilitating disability. If you feel like a service dog will be beneficial for you, and you can get it trained or train it yourself, you should do it! A service dog can even just distract you. Like, ‘Hey, hey, stop it. Stop doing that harmful behavior.’ So they stop you when you can’t yourself. And you can get a service dog for basically anything. There are diabetes detection dogs, where you ask, ‘High or low?’ and they'll put their nose above or below your hand to tell you if it's too high or too low. So there's something for everybody.” Bri says, “Yes, getting a puppy is expensive, but if you can do that much, and then put the dedication into training, you can have a service dog too.”
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