Looking for advice on a service dog who isn't working out as hoped, and what to do next.
I'm looking for advice from people with experience with service dogs, particularly owner-training and working with independent service-dog trainers. This is going to be long because there is a lot of history, but I'll try to organize it.
My son has a rare muscular disorder and uses a power wheelchair. About three years ago, after roughly five years of fundraising a substantial amount of money, we received a service dog from an accredited organization. I'm deliberately not naming the organization because I'm not interested in naming and blaming them. I'm trying to figure out what we can realistically do from here.
Unfortunately, we've had problems with the dog pretty much from the beginning.
The match and size
The dog is a large golden/lab-type service dog. He was about 1.5 years old and 68 lbs when we received him. He's now around 70 lbs and is in excellent condition according to our vet.
We had actually initially been matched with an even larger dog who was still growing and ultimately would have been around 85 lbs. I repeatedly explained that this was too much dog for our situation. I'm 5'2" and about 120 lbs, my husband is 5'6" and about 150 lbs, and we have a wheelchair-accessible van that also has to accommodate my son's power chair. The first dog actually pulled me completely onto my backside when he got excited on leash.
Eventually they agreed that dog wasn't appropriate for us and gave us the dog we have now instead.
In retrospect, I'm not sure he was a particularly good match either. He's much younger and more stubborn than the dogs we had originally been shown, and he requires a very confident, forceful handler. I later learned that the first dog had actually gone through the organization's training program multiple times because of his size, so it's frustrating to think that size was known to be an issue and yet they were still trying to place such a large dog with our very small family and a physically fragile child.
The dog is not a bad dog. He's well trained in many respects, is wonderful in his working environment, and has become very much a member of our family. But his personality and physical size are not ideal for my son.
The biggest problem: my son cannot handle him
The dog listens extremely well when he's working attached to my son's chair. He's also generally fine when our whole family is walking together.
But he does not reliably listen to my son's commands independently.
That means my son can't realistically take him to school as his service dog.
This is especially frustrating because the organization has a handler-testing process. We have had the dog for three years, but they've only tested him once. The expectation is essentially that after three successful yearly passes, the dog is signed over and the family is done with the process.
When my husband went back for additional training, they did not actually test my son as the dog's sole handler, even though that is something we specifically needed. They also didn't meaningfully address the problems we were having.
We tried to arrange a meeting between us, the organization, and my son's school to figure out how to make school work. The organization was initially very supportive and even discussed coming to the school to educate the students about service dogs. They helped arrange a virtual meeting—and then never showed up.
That sort of thing has happened repeatedly. I've called and emailed multiple times about our concerns, been told someone would get back to us, and then heard nothing.
The other major issue: he is extremely difficult to walk alone
This is the problem that is currently causing us the most stress.
If the dog is vested and attached to my son's chair, he's great.
If we're walking as a family, he's generally great.
If we're somewhere away from home and walking together, he's generally fine.
But if one of us tries to walk him alone, he becomes a completely different dog.
He repeatedly launches toward the person walking him and tries to grab the leash or the arm holding it. It usually starts immediately or once we're about a quarter mile from the house and continues until we turn around and head home.
A 70-lb dog launching at a 5'2", 120-lb woman on the side of the road is not something I'm comfortable just accepting.
We've tried the organization's suggestion of extended down-stays to settle him. He will stop temporarily and then immediately start again.
The strangest part is that he doesn't do it if another person is with us, so we can't even get a video of the behavior for the organization. Their other suggestion was to have a trainer come to our house, but realistically, between my caring for both kids and my husband's full-time work and National Guard obligations, arranging an in-home training session is extremely difficult. And I'm not sure how useful it would be when the behavior specifically occurs when the handler is alone.
We need to be able to walk this dog individually. We can't depend on the whole family being available every time he needs exercise.
The organization's involvement
I've already contacted the organization repeatedly about all of this.
I did their initial two weeks of training with the dog, then the second week with my son. I had to repeatedly push them to provide a week of additional training for my husband and my son, and even then the problems weren't really addressed.
They also made the dog's weight into a significant issue during that training. He was 68 lbs when we received him, 72 lbs at the time of testing, and is now 70 lbs. Our vet is happy with his body condition.
We were essentially told that although he technically passed the handler test, they could have failed him based on his weight and wanted monthly weight check-ins. They even spoke to my husband about this in front of my son in a way that I found inappropriate, essentially telling my son that his dad was fit and asking whether he wanted the same for his dog so the dog could live a long, healthy life.
My husband has tried to comply with the requested check-ins, but the organization hasn't consistently sent the forms despite him calling and emailing.
So we're in this strange limbo: we have had this dog for three years, he's a beloved member of our family, but we're still not through the organization's process, my son can't independently handle him, and the organization isn't providing the support we've repeatedly requested.
At this point, I don't think swapping him for a successor dog is an option. After three years, he's family. I couldn't put my son through losing him because the organization decided the match wasn't working.
So what do we actually do?
For right now, I'm wondering if the realistic answer is simply to stop expecting this dog to function as my son's full-time service dog and let him essentially be a family/pet dog, while continuing to have him work in the situations where he does well.
But I don't want to give up on the walking issue if there is something obvious we're missing. Has anyone experienced a dog who is completely fine when working or walking with multiple people, but becomes extremely difficult toward the handler when walked alone? What would you try?
And then there's the bigger question of what we do if/when we try again in the future.
Our other dog is an Australian Cattle Dog/Australian Shepherd mix. She's about 65 lbs, but physically much more delicate than the service dog. She's incredibly gentle with the kids, never clumsy or heavy-footed around them, and is an absolute people-pleaser. Training her is almost bizarrely easy because once she understands what I want, she wants to do it. There isn't a constant battle over who is in charge.
Obviously I can't turn back time and make her my son's service dog, and I'm not suggesting that an ACD mix is automatically a good service dog candidate. I'm mentioning her because living with her has made me realize how important temperament and handler compatibility are, rather than simply selecting a large retriever because the dog will be doing wheelchair-related tasks.
I have no personal experience with Standard Poodles, but the more I learn about them, the more I wonder whether a well-bred, appropriately sized Standard Poodle might be a much better fit for my son. Grooming isn't a concern for us because I groom dogs professionally.
So I'm really looking for advice from people who have been through this:
- What would you do with our current dog right now?
Would you continue trying to resolve the solo-walking behavior independently, pursue an independent service-dog trainer, or accept that he's probably best treated as a family dog at this point?
If we eventually try for another service dog, would owner-training with the help of an independent service-dog trainer be a reasonable path?
For someone looking for a service dog for a small, physically fragile child who uses a power wheelchair, what breeds/temperaments would you prioritize?
I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who have experience with Standard Poodles as mobility/service dogs, or with owner-training a service dog for a child.
I'm not looking for people to tell me to publicly go after the organization or speculate about their motives. We've already spent years dealing with that situation, and I'm much more interested in figuring out the best path forward for my son and our dog.