Dewey... his story is both amazing and long. If you don't think dogs or animals in general can be just as important as a human life then you probably won't understand a thing in this post. Though if you want to read it, I encourage you to read it with every ounce of my being, he has changed many people's views on what a dog can be.
Dewey is not your typical service dog, first of all he is a shelter dog, a rescue who had some severe behavioral issues when we first got him. He also weighs at most, when he is his heaviest, 13 pounds, and is a perfect mix between a rat terrier and a chihuahua, though it is extremely likely he has quite a few other breeds of unknown origin. He is very obviously rat terrier and chihuahua though, both with his personality, body build, and his intelligence level. If you have never had a dog that made you feel like an idiot on a regular basis you have no idea what you are missing. Because honestly, though it may sound bad or annoying, I would never willingly buy or rescue an averagely intelligent dog again.
Now Dewey is not the typical intelligence a lab might possess. Those dogs are intelligent where they are easily trained, however Dewey is intelligent on so many levels. He is intelligent where he is easily trained yes, but he also intelligent in the way where he can easily think about a situation and choose whether following my command would be the best result or not. Honestly when he chooses his own path and I allow it, he often chooses something with a better result than something I would choose. The fact that he was easy to train, could think for himself independently, and bonded to me very strongly; made him the perfect service dog for me.
Originally when we rescued him, he was fear aggressive to literally almost everything and anything he could or would come across in his life. He hated cats, other dogs no matter whether he could see them or not, most other people, children, sounds he didn't understand. It was so horrible back then, that when you meet him today and I tell people about how he was back then, people are completely shocked. He is literally a different dog. Some of it is him growing up, a lot of problems ended as he grew up to around 3 years old and grew out of his "puppy stage" of life. However there was so much work that went into getting him to that stage and then even passed there.
I didn't even consider making him my service dog until I talked to my psychiatrist about how much he helped me and how he occasionally seemed to get upset before my anxiety attacks. My psychiatrist back then, talked to me about working on making him a service dog. I was more worried about making it safe for him to go out in public without severe explosions of aggression, and so after I honed his alerting just a bit more, I worked intensively on each facet of his fear aggression. The hardest things in his life that have been to over come is dog aggression, and child aggression. However now I am happy to say, child or baby aggression no longer exists in Dewey at all, he is all waggy tail and loving licks when he meets children of any age. This he learned from lots of positive reinforcement, so when we spent several days on end with my cousin who was toddler at the time, he was on leash and every time he approached her with no sign of aggression (even if it was just a sniff) he was given a high value treat. Soon he realized he didn't just get those treats, but if he stayed near her, she dropped amazing stuff as well. He is one of those amazing dogs that don't steal food from children unless it is obviously offered to him or dropped. However if he did bark at her there was still punishment given, I often would say leave it and pop his collar, then remove him from the situation to let him calm down.
Dewey is not your typical service dog, first of all he is a shelter dog, a rescue who had some severe behavioral issues when we first got him. He also weighs at most, when he is his heaviest, 13 pounds, and is a perfect mix between a rat terrier and a chihuahua, though it is extremely likely he has quite a few other breeds of unknown origin. He is very obviously rat terrier and chihuahua though, both with his personality, body build, and his intelligence level. If you have never had a dog that made you feel like an idiot on a regular basis you have no idea what you are missing. Because honestly, though it may sound bad or annoying, I would never willingly buy or rescue an averagely intelligent dog again.
Now Dewey is not the typical intelligence a lab might possess. Those dogs are intelligent where they are easily trained, however Dewey is intelligent on so many levels. He is intelligent where he is easily trained yes, but he also intelligent in the way where he can easily think about a situation and choose whether following my command would be the best result or not. Honestly when he chooses his own path and I allow it, he often chooses something with a better result than something I would choose. The fact that he was easy to train, could think for himself independently, and bonded to me very strongly; made him the perfect service dog for me.
Originally when we rescued him, he was fear aggressive to literally almost everything and anything he could or would come across in his life. He hated cats, other dogs no matter whether he could see them or not, most other people, children, sounds he didn't understand. It was so horrible back then, that when you meet him today and I tell people about how he was back then, people are completely shocked. He is literally a different dog. Some of it is him growing up, a lot of problems ended as he grew up to around 3 years old and grew out of his "puppy stage" of life. However there was so much work that went into getting him to that stage and then even passed there.
I didn't even consider making him my service dog until I talked to my psychiatrist about how much he helped me and how he occasionally seemed to get upset before my anxiety attacks. My psychiatrist back then, talked to me about working on making him a service dog. I was more worried about making it safe for him to go out in public without severe explosions of aggression, and so after I honed his alerting just a bit more, I worked intensively on each facet of his fear aggression. The hardest things in his life that have been to over come is dog aggression, and child aggression. However now I am happy to say, child or baby aggression no longer exists in Dewey at all, he is all waggy tail and loving licks when he meets children of any age. This he learned from lots of positive reinforcement, so when we spent several days on end with my cousin who was toddler at the time, he was on leash and every time he approached her with no sign of aggression (even if it was just a sniff) he was given a high value treat. Soon he realized he didn't just get those treats, but if he stayed near her, she dropped amazing stuff as well. He is one of those amazing dogs that don't steal food from children unless it is obviously offered to him or dropped. However if he did bark at her there was still punishment given, I often would say leave it and pop his collar, then remove him from the situation to let him calm down.
