We love dogs. They’re loyal, innocent (mostly), hilarious at times, and they do stuff like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qruhbYlpvgM
They seem, almost mysteriously, drawn to humans more than most other animals with whom we interact. On a linear scale, dogs fall somewhere between the extremes of gnats, flies, and mosquitoes, who can’t get enough of us (literally—they can’t get enough of our blood), and other peoples’ cats, shadowy figures who always seem to lurk in another dimension.
The reason that dogs give the impression that they’re born with an innate ability to coexist with humans is largely because they’ve been bred to be that way. Dogs—though they were more like modern day wolves at that point—and prehistoric humans formed a mutually beneficial relationship thousands of years ago. Dogs got to eat food scraps from recent hunts, and the prehistoric humans got a tidier camp with a built-in barking alarm system.
Dogs became a crucial part of human communities. Some have even been discovered deliberately buried with our ancestors. Fast forward to today, and dogs, commonly hailed as “man’s best friend” are still killing it at living up to that title. Most of us appreciate our dogs most when they’re just hanging out with us, be it in front of the TV, jogging down a trail, or playing fetch in the park. But some people can’t live without their dogs—quite literally.
Service with a wag
“Service animals,” according to the US Department of Justice, are “dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities.” These dogs are used by people with a wide variety of disabilities, performing various tasks to assist their human partners. They’re still the lovable canines we know, but they’re not pets.
To earn the prestigious title of “service animal,” a dog must complete enough training to pass the Public Access Test, which lists out the behavioral requirements of service animals. It includes things like heeling (staying by their human) when traveling in public areas and through crowds, responding to commands like sit and stay, and not being distracted by noises. Experts say it can take up to 120 hours of training to prepare a dog to pass the Public Access Test’s requirements, including thirty hours of training in public areas. (The National Service Animal Registry lists the full lists of requirements for the test here.)
So how does someone take a dog, whose natural inclination may be to run around the house like a wild animal, or one who wants to greet every person in a crowd with a slobbery kiss, and transform that rambunctious beast into a highly trained, well-oiled, assistance-giving machine? Well, they do it the same way humans have been training dogs for years, a process called operant conditioning. Unlike classical conditioning, in which the dog is trained to have an involuntary reaction to a stimulus (think Pavlov and the dinner bell), operant conditioning is used to get dogs to perform voluntary actions on command.
Operant conditioning may sound complicated, but it’s something almost every dog owner does, probably every day. If you teach your dog to sit by giving it a treat when it responds correctly to your command, you’re using reward dog training. If you teach your dog not to jump on people with a stern BAD DOG when it does, you’re using aversive dog training.
Service dog training isn’t much different—it’s just much more extensive.
More amazing than you can imagine
All those hours of training give service animals much more than the usual abilities to sit, stay, and come. In fact, these special pups carry out complex tasks, such as calming down people who struggle with anxiety, alerting others when their human is having a seizure, and retrieving objects that are out of reach. Every time a service animal does these and many other tasks, they are doing a great service, improving the lives of their human partners. But occasionally, a service animal does something above and beyond, and they make the news.
On August 6, 2015, Yolanda, a then five-year-old yellow lab service animal, found herself in a blazing inferno. She and her owner were trapped inside their home as it went up in flames. According to a news report, Yolanda not only alerted the fire department by pressing a button on the phone, she eventually pulled her owner out of the home to safety.
Or how about when a seven-year-old black lab named Jedi saved the life of his owner, Luke. (We don’t make this stuff up—Luke has a dog named Jedi.) Luke has type one diabetes. His blood-sugar level can rise too high or drop dangerously low at a moment’s notice, which can lead to death if not treated in a timely manner. According to an article in the New York Daily News, one night as Luke was sleeping, his blood-sugar level dropped. Jedi, who has a knack for sensing abnormal blood-sugar levels, quickly jumped onto the bed of Luke’s mother, letting her know something was wrong, and allowing her to get to Luke just in time.
It’s amazing to think about the way service dogs learn new behaviors through their training or how they make headlines with life-saving stories. But perhaps the most important thing to remember about service dogs isn’t the extremes—their training process or their stories of fire-rescue missions. It’s the in-between moments, when service dogs do their jobs, day in and day out, in less-than-exciting circumstances, working to protect their human partners and to make their lives a little easier.