Service Dog Training Session
I’m Luc Picard I’m one of the founders
of eat cat educated canines assisting
with disabilities and we’re here at the
Dobbs Ferry train station ECAD mission
is two specially trained dogs that give
independence to people with physical
disabilities and that the physical
disabilities could be invisible or
visible but mostly we handle with the
disabilities handling their arms and
their legs stop wait
what we’re working on at the train
station today our task going up and down
the stairs and and the dog has to take
the step when you tell them to take a
step not when you move wait
so work on the elevator and the dog
hitting the button to get in and out of
the elevator for us and the elevator is
the most dangerous place for a dog
because the leash is never thick enough
to stop the door from shutting and when
you’re getting in and out of an elevator
you don’t know what’s going to happen on
the outside of that so you have to be
prepared go through and turn around he
turns around and back back back back
until I clear and then yield and then
the last thing we worked on was tugging
open doors holding the door and here at
the train station the doors glass and
there’s other commotions going around so
we’re just trying to generalize that
tell the dog pull the door hold the door
no matter what’s going on with it it
could be a train going by it could be
people walking around
it could be somebody to get walking
through the door you’re holding just
hold it till I tell you to drop it we
keep our dogs with us from the time
they’re born until they’re placed we
have at our breeding center we have a
resident goat
chickens rabbits a cat and the puppies
are exposed to all of that stuff from a
very young age and trained with those
animals around them and then we’re
exposing them to the train station to
traffic to night work to being in the
park at night or being where there’s a
lot of deer and having those kinds of
exposures for them
and I would say the most common benefit
for everyone is that they feel
independent they feel like they have a
buddy there who was more than willing to
help them they have to help the dog so
it’s really a mutual bond different than
if it was a human helping them then they
feel like they’re a burden but with the
dog they feel like it’s a team this is
team effort the dog needs me to stay
alive I need the dog to stay alive a lot
of things you’ll find out is that people
do more they go more places the more
adventurous they’re more willing to take
the risk because they have their dogs
with them
you
