“Rock” Practices Service Dog Task

I have two puppies from our last litter here in my office. Riff is a pup that I held back from about the day he was born to train for Service Dog work. Rock, his brother, has always been a bit of a “wild child” and I actually found myself withholding information about him when folks called about getting a puppy as a family companion. I just didn’t know if the typical dog owner would be able to handle his “spirited” disposition.

Now that all the pups have gone to their new homes, I am able to focus more on training Riff for his future “profession.” And, well, then there’s Rock. He’s actually a very intelligent pup – I’d say he’s a bit brighter than Riff. And, well, that’s probably the reason I was worried about placing Rock with a “normal” family. You see, I raised herding-working Border Collies for over two decades. Border Collies are well documented as one of the most intelligent breeds of dogs. I’ve been known to say that there are Border Collies and then there are all the other breeds. Of course, it’s not usually prudent to make such a proclamation to anyone but someone who has lived with a Border Collie.

As he’s matured I have heard myself saying, “Rock is more like a Border Collie than his siblings.” While he was moving through his first six months I found his zesty attitude a bit of a struggle. Now that he’s old enough to deal with some high standard obedience, I’m loving him! He has a wonderful conscience, desire to please and he wants to be right in the best way. By that I don’t mean he wants to make his own decisions about what he’s going to do but, rather he wasn’t to know what I want and he wants to do that to the very best of his ability.

Here’s a short video of Rocking learning to move to and then press a button. As a pet / companion this could be a fun parlor trick. It’s also a very useful task for a Service Dog. I’m not yet sure that I want to take on the challenge of training two pups for Service Dog work, but Rock is beginning to show me that it might not be so difficult, and it could even be a great experience.