Learning the Hard Way: Reducing Overwhelm in Your Speech Therapy Dog (and You!)
“There are two ways to learn life’s lessons, the easy way and the hard way. I seem to prefer the hard way.”
Patty Houser, author and motivational speaker
The realization hit me and I felt like an idiot.
After all, the whole reason I first delved into animal-assisted therapy was to help my clients establish a calm, focused state to better learn new concepts. Yet here I was, asking my young therapy dog Sky to learn a new skill when she was tired, satiated on the food rewards I was offering, and probably a little overwhelmed.
Over the past five years of working with four speech therapy dogs of widely different temperaments I have learned to better recognize when I am inundating my furry co-therapist with too many ideas.
Fortunately they’ve been very forgiving of mistakes I’ve made as I learned largely through trial and error.
Here are three situations I now approach very differently in order to minimize the stress my therapy dogs and I feel at work and hopefully contribute to a longer, happier career:
New speech therapy dog Sky shows off her new skill, “shake”. It took me re-evaluating the learning environment for her to finally understand the expectation.
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#1. Choosing when and where to train a speech therapy dog’s skills
In the example above, I was trying to train Sky to shake hands during our down time between clients. Sky had learned basic obedience skills very quickly. So our preparation for working together was primarily in generalizing her ability to perform those actions in the more distracting and exciting work environment.
A couple months into partnering together I was ready to up our game and teach her some tricks I’d found helpful for practicing certain sounds and phrases with my child clients.
Sky showed no worries about kids handling her feet, so “shake” seemed like a no-brainer.
Only Sky was simply not understanding the expectation to pick up her paw. I could lure her into it but after several days of trying we were not even close to being able to put it on command.
Then it dawned on me…work days were NOT the time to try teaching something new.
So I started working on shake at home on her days off. Within two, five-minute sessions she had the idea! She was even offering her paw to me as soon as I put her in a sit.
Bingo!
At home, well-rested and hungry for treats, Sky was able to actually think and therefore learn. At work her mind was already working at capacity to read each client’s cues, her belly already too full of treats to be able to focus on problem-solving what I expected of her.
Now I work on new skills at home, then generalize them to the office. Once Sky is able to perform a new trick with me between sessions, I ask a calm and predictable child to command her before trying it out with kids who are more taxing in their interaction style with her.
#2 Letting go of making my therapy dog an ambassador at all times
Speech therapy dog Delta helps a client transition out of therapy by walking through the hall together. In the past I would invite strangers in the lobby to pet her as we returned, but I’ve changed my philosophy on community outreach with my therapy dogs.
Perhaps it was a holdover from eight months of practicing socialization to get Delta comfortable away from home after we adopted her.
Perhaps it’s because I’m a people pleaser.
Or perhaps I still worry that complete strangers are judging me as I parade my dog through the office building, not realizing that she is a working team member and not just a pet.
Until recently, I felt the need to introduce the dogs and explain their work role to everyone that looks our way as we pass in the lobby on the way for bathroom breaks.
While each dog tolerated being pet in this context (and Johnny Utah even relished it), I finally realized they probably don’t need the added stress of meeting additional strangers beyond already greeting 7-9 families a day. The precious few moments we have to get outside, sniff around a bit, and head back to work would be more fairly spent taking a break from social interactions.
Nowadays I still stop occasionally to chat with someone who looks especially eager to greet my dog (especially kids and seniors), but otherwise I try to just smile politely and walk with purpose toward the door.
Now that I have business cards for the dogs, I may even put a few out in the public area for those who are interested. They can search the Speech Dogs site for information and contact me with any questions without adding to Delta and Sky’s workload.
#3 For the human side of therapy dog-handler team…
Delta readily lies on children to provide deep pressure input and help regulate their sensory system as part of her role in animal-assisted speech therapy. New speech therapy dog Sky is more hesitant about this skill, but has other strengths.
“Train the dog in front of you.” Denise Fenzi, dog trainer
I’ve seen this quote in nearly every dog resource I’ve consulted recently and I love its simplicity and relevance.
As I interact with an ever-increasing community of therapy dog handlers from across different professions, I see how they partner with their dog and often want to emulate an activity or skill they share.
I look at my therapy dogs, who have so many amazing qualities already, and think, “Why can’t you do that?” Or sometimes I think, if I just put in more effort I could add that skill to my animal-assisted therapy repertoire.
I have to remind myself the power of the work comes from the human-animal bond my speech therapy dogs develop with clients. Yes, it’s nice to have tricks and special activities to engage the kids, but I could teach 100 tricks and still not see the same benefit as I see when a child is petting my dog to calm down, letting them lie across their body for regulating deep pressure input, or having a meaningful reason to practice a skill by speaking to them.
So if I:
recognize Delta and Sky’s natural strengths and preferences,
only try out new skills that fit these, and
stay open to abandoning the idea if they are showing discomfort or disinterest…
…I know that we will all be happier and more effective therapists in the long run.
As examples:
Delta confidently enjoys providing deep pressure input and has increased the variety of ways she can do this over time.
Sky, however—only a few months into therapy dog work as of this writing—is a bit nervous when the kids move while she is trying to lie on them. For now I’ll keep working to increase her comfort level with my more predictable clients and see if more advanced deep pressure input is in her future or not.
Her hair is extra soft and fluffy though, and she seems to enjoy letting kids (with supervision, of course) run their fingers through the long hair behind her ears to slow their minds and bodies. So I can direct dysregulated kids to interact with her in that way when I need to calm down a session.
Sky loves to play fetch and other high-energy games however, so together we’re learning new ways to incorporate active play into her sessions. (See our favorite toys and tunnel on the Therapy Dog Supplies page.)
Delta, on the other hand, looks at a tossed ball like I’ve lost my mind. I could double down on shaping this behavior with increased reinforcement, or I could just decide—and have—that it’s not worth the time and effort. She simply would never be truly joyful engaging in that type of activity.
She loves jumping up on items though (chairs, benches, the swing, the ball pit), so instead I can direct her energy that way when I need to liven up a session.
By recognizing each therapy dog’s preferences, I not only increase their comfort in work activities, I reduce my own overwhelm by not feeling like I need to constantly be in training mode to “keep up” with what other animal-assisted interventionists are doing in their sessions.
Now if I could just remember that the next time I see a cool new therapy dog skill on social media…
If you’re interested in the variety of ways a therapy dog can help you at work, Paws for Progress: Incorporating Animal-Assisted Interventions Into Your Speech-Language Pathology Practice is available now from ASHA Press!
And very soon I’ll be offering a self-paced, online course on the foundations of therapy animal inclusion in professional settings.
Follow on Instagram @Speech_Dogs for more tips and inspiration!
May your day be filled with puppy wiggles and children’s giggles,
Sharlet
Update: Since writing this article Sky has indeed become more comfortable providing deep pressure input.
Delta still has no interest in fetch :-)
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