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For this episode of K9 Conservationists, Kayla speaks with Rayanne Craven about medical alert service dogs.
Science Highlight:
None this week
Links Mentioned in the Episode:
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Where you can find Rayanne: Website
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Summary
By Maddie Lamb with the help of Chat-GPT
Background: Rayanne Craven, or “Ray,” isn’t just an avid dog lover since childhood but also a professional dog trainer. With a career spanning four years, her special focus is on service dogs that alert for conditions like type one diabetes, PTSD, and anxiety. Besides her professional endeavors, she is a proud owner of a retired Labrador and a Hungarian Mudi, the latter being an active participant in dog sports.
Challenges: Located in Mississippi, Ray often finds herself traveling out of state for dog sports competitions due to limited local events. Her current professional affiliations include the Animal Medical Center in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Subsidy Service Dogs, and the virtual platform Tenacious Dog Training.
Medical Alert Dogs: While devices like continuous glucose monitors are becoming standard for diabetics, dogs have an uncanny ability to detect blood sugar anomalies even faster, serving as an essential secondary alert system. The dogs’ reward system, majorly based on food, revolves around their knack for detecting a specific, yet scientifically unidentified, scent.
Training Techniques:
- The key difference between conservation and medical alert dogs is their scent detection method. The latter zeroes in on an immediate odor without cues.
- The “scent pattern” technique is noteworthy. It involves instructing the dog to sniff sequentially on sweat-prominent body parts.
- “Proofing” ensures the dog can focus on the specific medical scent despite distractions.
- Transition from controlled training to real-world scenarios is intricate, moving from open scent containers to hidden scent placements on a person.
Client Concerns: Each client brings a unique challenge, from varying blood sugar levels to specific medical conditions affecting glucose processing. The importance of unadulterated scent collection is emphasized, with best practices involving freezing scent samples and discarding them after three days.
Essentials of Medical Alert Dog Training:
- Bonding is paramount. A close relationship between the dog and handler ensures efficiency.
- Ray advocates for the client’s involvement from the early stages of training.
- Behavioral training for public places is vital. A dog’s impeccable behavior in public settings ensures they’re not just home-bound service animals.
- Continuous training, even post-proficiency, ensures the dog remains efficient and motivated.
Industry Challenges: The U.S. currently has no formal certification for service dogs, opening doors for scams and poorly trained service animals. The pressing need is for genuine, dedicated trainers.
Connect with Ray: Ray, with her vast knowledge, encourages those interested to dive into this field, underscoring the amount of genuine resources available. Reach her on Facebook (Rayanne Craven), Instagram (@RayTheDogTrainer), her website, or email ([email protected]).
Transcript (AI-Generated)
Kayla Fratt
Hello and welcome to the K9Conservationists podcast, where we’re possibly obsessed with conservation detection dogs. Join us every week to discuss ecology, odor dynamics, dog behavior and everything in between. I am your host, Kayla Fratt, one of the cofounders of K9Conservationists, where we train dogs to detect data for land managers, researchers, agencies and NGOs. Today, unfortunately, I am recording from a Starbucks in El Salvador and I do apologize for my audio quality. We’re going to make sure that Rayanne, our guest, has much better audio quality as she’s going to be sharing all the most pertinent information today.
Kayla Fratt
Today, we’re here talking to Rayanne Craven all about medical alert dogs. So Rayanne, why don’t you start off with telling us a little bit about yourself, the dogs you share your life with and how you got into this role?
Rayanne Craven
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. So, like you said, my name is Ray. And I’ve been involved with dogs since I was a kid, like most of us, I think, that started out in dog training. But so for many, many years, but the past four years, I’ve been working professionally as a trainer, both with pet dogs, and with service dogs, primarily type one diabetic alert, service dogs, but also some PTSD, anxiety. And, you know, working with with clients with those dogs training them for those those purposes.
Rayanne Craven
As far as personal dogs, I have to I have a 13 and a half year old Labrador retriever, who’s he’s retired, he just does what he wants. And then I have a two year old Hungarian Mudi that I do compete with, and some dogs sports like FASTCat, Doctor having, hoping to dabble in some rally, maybe some barn hunt. So just some sport things with him, maybe some stunt work to have experience with that.
Rayanne Craven
But unfortunately, while I’m looking at it here in Mississippi, Mississippi is kind of doesn’t really have a lot of dogs for so there’s a lot of traveling outside of the state involved. And so depending on how busy I am with work, that kind of limits how often we’re able to do sports, but we do what we can. And the virtual virtual titling has been really helpful in us being able to get different titles and things.
Rayanne Craven
But yeah, and so as far as where I work, I work in person. Try training both pet dogs and then service dogs for Animal Medical Center in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and then Subsidy Service Dogs and have worked Mississippi, and then also work virtually with our mutual friend, Maggie Pearson at Tenacious Dog Training. And I offer both virtual consultations and sessions for once again, pet dog puppy training, and then also service dog training.
Kayla Fratt
Yeah, well, thank you for that Rayanne. And I think you know, for for folks at home who are wondering why we have you on the show, you know, selfishly, for me, it’s just something that I’ve been really curious about as far as how to work with these medical alert dogs. We’re gonna get into a lot of my specific questions here. But I’m also hoping that hoping that for folks at home, who maybe are interested in getting into a career with working dogs, or service, dogs scent work, those sorts of things, but for whatever reason are struggling to break into the conservation dog field. You know, we talk all the time on this show about how hard that can be. This may be another venue of interest. And hopefully it can help pique sparks some ideas for other ways to get involved with dogs that are working for good.
Kayla Fratt
So I know personally, most of my thinking about medical detection dogs are more on the side of you know, the dogs that are screening for SARS, COVID, two dogs that are screening for, you know, ovarian cancer because I think there’s a little bit more crossover between that sort of work and what you do. So why don’t you describe to us what it is that you do and how, what that actually looks like, what what is this job for a dog?
Rayanne Craven
Yeah, so I’m a medical alert service dog as far as what it’s considered and like what I trained for is so we’re having the dog learn that whenever they smell the certain scent. So for instance, what I have most experience with, and there’s definitely a lot of different medical conditions that people have been able to train dogs for.
Rayanne Craven
But once again, what I have the most experience with this type one diabetes. What we do is we train the dog to detect the person’s low blood glucose level. So low blood sugar, and sometimes do also want the dog to alert whenever they have a high blood sugar level. But primarily people want lows, because those are more dangerous. And in case someone doesn’t know when it comes to diabetes, if someone’s blood sugar gets too low, it could lead to them being in a you know, diabetic coma. If it happens at night, you know, they just might not know and it very well could lead to death. So definitely nothing to you know play around with Is there anything like that, and a lot of my clients do have what’s called a continuous glucose monitor, to monitor their blood sugar. And it’s usually synced up with a device or even their phone for them to alert them when their blood sugar hits a certain level. But oftentimes, we find that the dogs are sometimes able to detect it before the continuous glucose monitor.
Rayanne Craven
And so the dog, it’s kind of having two layers of safety there. So you’ve got the dog, and then you’ve also got your medical device, I usually don’t recommend, you know, I’m not saying okay, get rid of your medical device, you got the dog now know, they work in tandem, it’s kind of almost a little bit of a failsafe kind of system there. But so we have the dogs, and what we want them to learn is when you smell this particular scent, and there’s still a lot of research out there, as far as what exactly the dog is picking up on the we’re not sure if it’s there certain compounds in the and I primarily use saliva. So we have the person collect their saliva during a low blood sugar event or high blood sugar event within a certain range. And we don’t know if there’s compounds in the saliva, or maybe there’s that and then also the dog is perhaps picking up on subtle symptoms, you know, we know dogs are fantastic at just picking up little nuances, you know, in our behaviors and everything.
Rayanne Craven
So maybe it’s, the person’s starting to sweat or getting shaky, whether it’s, you know, just combination of all of it, but the dogs are definitely able to, you know, pick up on something in that sentence. So we, you know, train the dog that when you smell the scent, you get rewarded for it. And I know in some scent detections, people will use like toys, as a reward. I know a lot of like, training for, you know, contraband or different things like that they prefer toys for awards, I prefer using food. And usually when I’m introducing a dog to a scent, I’m going to try to use kibble just because we’re gonna get lots and lots of repetitions, I want at least 1000 repetitions of, “you smell this scent, you get a treat, you smell the scent, give treat,” over and over again. Because I want that dog really, really motivated.
Rayanne Craven
And so I want a dog obviously, that’s very food motivated and has you know, really good nose, one that’s just nosy basically, you want a dog that’s always sniffing, always interested in what you’re doing. And really, really rewarding them for investigating, you know, that scent. And so that’s, you know, basically how we start out is dog smells the scent, you get rewarded for it. And then we kind of progress as far as getting the dog to do what we call love alerts, you know, on the the person themselves, but yeah, as far as, you know, kind of overall, what a medical alert service dog is, they detect a certain scent on that you know, their person’s body, and then they alert that either that person or we may also have to train the dog to smell that scent, and go alert a caretaker, and then bring the caretaker back to that person.
Rayanne Craven
So that’s a whole, you know, all another behavior chain there that we have to have to work in, which can make it you know, a little bit complicated, versus just okay, you smell the scent alert to it, we’ve got to get that dog, you know, going away from the source, which can be hard, you know, sometimes, especially when we put in 1000s of repetitions of you know, smelling this scent, but you know, it’s definitely doable, but it just can make it a little more complicated. But yeah, as far as what a medical look service dog is, they’re smelling that particular scent that you’ve trained them on. And they’re whenever they detect the presence of this, and they’re alerting in, you know, some way.
Kayla Fratt
Yeah, okay. So I think the biggest thing that is really different from what we do, I mean, there’s a lot of big things that are really, really large differences. But one that really strikes me is a huge proportion of my dog’s job is moving through the environment, and you know, working air currents and vegetation and typography, trying to find that odor. Like once they hit it and then sourcing that odor. And all of that seems to be more or less eliminated for you all. And it’s much more about kind of proofing the dog’s ability to identify that odor kind of no matter what and when they haven’t been actively told to search. So it sounds like our initial imprinting process is quite similar. Whether you’re using food for the most part, we’re using toys for the most part. But how do you actually build out to helping the dog understand that this needs to happen to kind of no matter what and yeah, that I think that is the part of your job that fascinates me maybe the most.
Rayanne Craven
Yeah, yeah. And it’s, it’s one of those things that that’s why honestly, a lot of times that can be called like a high washout rate for service dogs, because it takes a really, really motivated dog. Because you think about like I was talking about earlier, you know, you need a dog that can wake up in the middle of the night, you know, and alert on a scent. So these dogs are working, you know, pretty much 24/7. And yeah, as you said, there is a lot of proofing that’s involved. Whenever, you know, I’m working with a client, and we’ve gone through kind of the initial stages of, you know, introducing the synth.
Rayanne Craven
And then I move on next to teaching what’s called like a scent pattern, which I learned from Debbie Kay’s Super Sniffers program, which is available through Atlas assistance dogs. And I highly recommend that course to anyone that is thinking about going into service dog training, specifically medical alert training, because it’s pretty in depth, and then you do have to submit like videos of you working with the dog. And it’s just a really good course.
Rayanne Craven
But in teaching that set pattern, you teach the dog to search. So just kind of give you a visual, it’s ankle, knee, and then like hip, and then you switch over to other hip, knee ankle. So it’s almost like a, you know, just up and you know, back down kind of motion. So that way, those areas of the body tend to produce a lot of sweat. And so that way, you know, even though I’m training the dog on saliva, your body still putting off some sort of, you know, compound, whether it’s saliva and your saliva, your sweat, and the dog is able to detect it. So teaching that scent pattern, we can put it on a cue.
Rayanne Craven
So if perhaps, you know, the client maybe feels a little off, and like the dog still, you know, in the training process, they can cue the dog to check. And that’s typically the cue that I use what of course, you can use whatever cue and the dog is able to kind of send up and down the person, if they do detect that scent, then they’re able to provide their alert. And usually we do, you know, like a polling alert or nose, you know, nudge to the leg, or, you know, a hand maybe some clients, there’s different of course, alerts you can do, and I’m sure you know, you guys also train different alerts for depending on what it is, you know, you’re wanting, you can also train the dog to you know, push a button or go, you know, and get a caretaker, instead of alerting that person. Because if it’s, you know, a child, or someone you know, who let’s say their blood sugar has dropped really low, they just, they may not be able, you know, mentally capable to make good decisions because their blood sugar has dropped so low. So we have the dog instead, go and get someone and bring them you know, back to the person. And so definitely, there’s a lot of proofing involved in that. And so like I said, once we get past that initial, you know, set pattern, and we do have it on cue, we still need the dog to just periodically check on their own.
Rayanne Craven
And that’s where it really helps to have basically a nosy dog, a dog that’s just really interested in what you’re doing all, you know, always wants to sniff things. Primarily, the dogs that I’ve worked with, come from a hunting lab breeder, and so they’re, they breed them specifically for their noses. And, you know, they, they actually do imprint the puppies in the whelping box on low blood glucose synth. Which is not, it’s not represent necessary. So if someone’s listening that you know, is looking to get a diabetic, you know, alert dog, is looking for a breeder, it’s not 100% necessary to do that you can definitely train the scent later on. But I have seen some really good results when it is introduced, you know, to puppies at a very, very young age, just because they’re like, “Hey, wait a minute, you know, this, this sounds familiar to me.” And so sometimes it can, you know, speed up the process a little bit.
Rayanne Craven
But yeah, it’s it’s really I mean, it’s amazing what they’re able to you know, pick up and everything and and you know, once we kind of go through this process and we start proofing you know, I’ll add in various scents so we’re not trying to you know, trick the dog so I’m not going to you know, the first time we start adding in other scents to kind of prove I’m not going to throw in you know, some turkey or something I don’t want to you know, confuse the dog or make them you know, stressed you know, as far as oh you know, there’s some there’s some turkey in this set 10 You know, over here so eventually Yeah, I’m going to start you know, putting in some harder to ignore scents.
Rayanne Craven
But to begin with, we’re going to start out with some you know, really mild things like you know, “unscented,” quote unquote you know, lotion or you know, something like that it just something different so the dog may stop and go oh, what does this but then usually they go right straight to that set we’ve been training on you know, over 1000s and 1000s of repetitions but it just makes them pause for a second and then they go back to that original sand and then I just like to, you know, gradually add in other since a lot of trainers have have used it to as well use what’s called a synth wheel. And you may be familiar with that.
Rayanne Craven
But you know, where you have, you know, multiple sets set out whether it’s on like a little lazy Susan, or a big, you know, kind of contraption that you make with like paint cans where you can set the differences down in there, the dog alerts on the correct one you reward and then you spin it around. So it kind of helps randomize it. Because, of course, as you know, people, and like I said earlier, dogs are super great at, you know, tuning into our body language and watching us for subtle cues, we can accidentally, you know, be giving these subtle cues that, oh, you know, you’re looking at it, or you’re leaning toward the correct sin, and we definitely don’t want that to happen, we’ve got to be completely, you know, unbiased and not be giving our dogs cues as to what the, you know, correct sentence.
Rayanne Craven
So that can kind of help randomize it for us, you know, using a scent wheel or something like that, because we’ve got to have the dog obviously alerting to the correct scent, because it’s, you know, could be, I mean, it is, you know, life threatening to the person if the dog doesn’t get it, right. And so just proofing on various scents, like I said, gradually making them harder, I will even use, like my own saliva, I don’t have diabetes. And you know, sometimes we’ll even have other people like in the client’s family do it, a lot of times, I will have them just to be on the safe side, you know, check their blood glucose level before, you know, they give this a lifesaver, because just on the off chance, you know, their blood sugar may be in that range that we’re training for. We know we obviously don’t want to confuse the dog then.
Rayanne Craven
But yeah, just providing these different proofing exercises to where every time that dog chooses that, you know, correct scent from their person of the low blood sugar or the high, you know, depending on what we’re training for. And once you train for one, so typically, like I said, most people want the low blood sugar alert, it usually doesn’t take very long to add in, you know, that high blood sugar alert as well. So obviously, there’s something similar to the sense but yet obviously something different, you know, because it’s, I have seen trainers train, you know, two different cues, actually, or alert, excuse me for the dog to give, have, you know, is it higher? Or is it low, and the dog is actually able to differentiate? I haven’t had a client that needed that. So I personally haven’t drained that. I primarily, like I said, most people want the lows train because those are the the most dangerous but yeah, it’s it’s super interesting, just what the dogs are able to do and to alert on and it’s just where some dogs aren’t able to succeed, it can be those those proofing exercises, because it’s not only, you know, the different scents, it’s all the different places, you know, and you know, it’s different when they’re at home, you know, with their person and yes, there’s, you know, lots of sense around but then when you’re at restaurants, when you’re, you know, outdoors when there’s so many different variables and things you have to train for to make sure that dogs gonna be able to alert anywhere at any time. And that’s where like I said, it takes a really special dog to be able to do that.
Kayla Fratt
And I’m conservationists offers several on demand webinars to help you and your dog go along in your journey as a conservation dog team. Our current on demand webinars are all roughly one hour long and priced at $25. They include a puppy set work all about raising and training a conservation puppy found it alerts and changes of behavior. And what you’re looking for teaching your dog a target voter, find these free webinars along with jackets, treat pouches, mugs, bento boxes, and more over at our website, canine conservationists.org/chuck. Okay, so that makes a ton of sense. And thank you for giving such detailed answers on this, this is exactly what I was looking for. So, you know, again, I think the thing that just keeps breaking my brain about these dogs is, especially within conservation, but also if you look at mind dogs, explosives, you know, drugs, bedbugs, you know, we’re cueing these dogs to search, we’re asking them to move through their their environment in a way that to me seems much more similar to kind of quote unquote, natural behaviors. And that’s just not part of what you’re asking these dogs to do. So what does it look like when you’re trying to move these dogs from the scent wheel towards a more realistic training scenario? Are you like planting cotton swabs on handlers that are at specific blood sugar levels, and, you know, how do you help make sure that the handlers are not cueing dogs when they know that that process is happening? That’s a lot of different questions all at once. But go ahead.
Rayanne Craven
Yeah, yeah, no problem. Yeah. So I do try to get you know, when I’m talking with my clients, as far as you know, the scent training and everything I do really, really reiterate and I’m sure you understand this as well as far as like no contamination. So like for instance, yeah, typically how they collect, the saliva is using Unlike dental goals rolls, or cue tips, the dental goals roles are preferred just because it just you know, soaks up more of the saliva so it gives the dog more scent to go off of. But they can’t have eaten or drink anything within 30 minutes besides like water, you know, so at first I have a client that their blood sugar’s really dropping, and they just chugged a Coke, you know, just tried to get it back up. You know, they can’t collect, you know, a blood sugar sample then and they, and bless their heart. They’re always like, I’m so sorry, we didn’t get any scents this week. I’m like, no, please, you’ve got to, you’ve got to take care of yourself. Like, don’t be worrying, you know, about getting the sense whenever your blood sugar’s dropping really, really fast, you know, but they do try to collect within a specific range.
Rayanne Craven
So typically, what my clients want is like around 70, just because that’s whenever it’s starting to drop. And it can drop pretty quickly. For some people, I’ve actually had some clients that wanted higher than that. So what might would honestly be considered somewhat normal, so around like 8085, but it’s because their blood sugar, they know, and every person’s different, but they know it’s gonna drop really, really quick. And then they also may have other medical conditions such as gastroparesis, which means that they can ingest a coke or, you know, glucose tablets, or whatever, but their body doesn’t process it quickly enough.
Rayanne Craven
So, you know, yes, they may have, like I said, took those sugar substances, but their blood sugar is still dropping. So they’re like, I need it sooner. So I can go ahead and you know, be taking those really sugary drinks or food or whatever. So I can go ahead and be working, because my blood sugar is still going to be consistently dropping. So yeah, we typically collect to have the people collect the saliva, at certain levels, whatever level is going to work best for them. And you know, within that certain range, so we don’t want to, you know, if we don’t want the dog alerting at, for instance, like 100 blood glucose level that we’re not going to collect at that level, you know, it needs to be within that, you know, specific range that they’re looking for.
Rayanne Craven
And then yeah, as far as the training process goes, like I said, really coach my clients on not contaminating it with other scents really keeping the sense in you know, specific containers, and then I have them freeze it, to preserve those scents and then thaw them out just before training, and then that scent then is only good for about three days, then you have to throw that one away and get another one, you know, and thought out and then also depends on how often are you using it. And so I really do, you know, Coach the client’s on really making sure we’re not contaminating it, or, you know, the scent has kind of dissipated. And we don’t want to confuse the dog at all, we want the scent to be really strong. And make sure the dog is really getting the full kind of set picture there.
Rayanne Craven
But yeah, we’re moving from the dog can visibly see the 10 we don’t want the dog to get to where, okay, they’re just alerting you know, on the tin, they’re not really sniffing, we do typically have them start hiding the tin like on their person. So maybe to start out with make it kind of easy, we just have them, you know, tuck it in, like the cuff of their pants leg, or, you know, kind of hold it up under their hand where maybe the dog can’t see it, you know, exactly, you know, unless they’re really really looking, they’re actually having to use their nose. And then from there we can progress to you know, really, really hiding it, like sticking in a pocket jacket pocket or something like that. But we just don’t want the dog like I said, you know, looking just looking for the tan, you know, and not actually sniffing and making sure you know, I’m coaching my clients, I’m like you said like, No, you can’t just that, you know, you want your dog to succeed.
Rayanne Craven
And so, you know, of course, if we’re doing like pet dog training, the dog doesn’t sit the first time we say it, we may hold the treat up, you know, above their nose or, you know, move a certain way to get the dog to sit or you can’t do that, you know, but scent training we need that dog to really think and really use their nose and not just sit there and you know, wait for us to tell them. So, you know, I’ve really make sure and if I’m coaching you know in person or whether I’m doing it virtually where I’m actually watching them as they’re doing a training session. I’ll try to remind them like, you know, don’t move you know, don’t you know, lean that way or, you know, try to try to point out because, of course we will you know, they want their dog to succeed and everything but I try to remind them in the long run that’s not going to help them you know, succeed and if the dog really is struggling, then of course that just lets us know that’s just information for us that okay, maybe we need to go back a step maybe the dogs not understanding the picture fully just yet and Okay, well we’ll just go back a step and really, you know, work those repetitions on the set, you know, get your award and then we can Go back to, you know that that step as well, but really, you know, making sure the dog is motivated for that scent, and like I said, just really, really rewarding for and that’s where, like I said, in my case, I’m looking for a dog that’s super food motivated that I can use, you know, just kibble I have had some client dogs where we had to move up the the treat ladder, so to speak, as far as you know, using little higher value treats.
Rayanne Craven
But for the most part, I want a dog that’s, you know, motivated for anything. Because that way we can get lots of repetitions in without having to worry about, you know, going up the treat ladder, and then not really caring that much. Because once again, this is something that you’re gonna have to be doing 24/7. So I need a dog that doesn’t get bored with it, you know, that doesn’t just say, I’m not working for that, I need one that’s just, you know, gung ho for whatever.
Rayanne Craven
And that’s where, like I said that that food motivation can really come into play and just being, you know, kind of, like, sort of nosy dog actually had a client that told me not too long ago, it’s us. They have a young female lab, and she was talking about how she’s just so nosy and like, wanting to get on the calendars and look around, you know, for most trainers are like, Oh my gosh, you know, their counter surfing, you know, kind of freak out about it. But for her, I was actually glad. Because that lets me know, oh, she’s interested, you know, she’s trying to figure out whether a person’s doing and it’s just nosy, you know, and so I’m like, Oh, well, that’s actually a good thing. Not that I’m going to encourage the counter surfing, you know, gave her some tips to, to help with that. But that lets me know, okay, that dogs interested in stuff and is, you know, kind of, quote unquote, nosy.
Rayanne Craven
And so I like, you know, to hear that whenever it comes to really getting started. And we are with her scent training and everything. But yeah, so like I said that, that motivation is really important. And like it is, of course, you know, having motivation for the Senate is important for, you know, your conservation work. But I know, like you said, you’re kind of cueing the dog on the scent, whereas these dogs, just, they have to kind of be on alert 24/7, you know, to, to know when to alert to that sent. And that’s where we talked a little about earlier, I, you know, have prefer if my clients do have, you know, some sort of medical device, whether it’s continuous glucose monitor, or just a glucometer, you know, just check it periodically. And most do, you know, they, they’ve lived with diabetes most of time for many, many years. And so they do try to keep a regular check.
Rayanne Craven
But I do stress to people that, you know, these are dogs, and while they’re fantastic, and, you know, if you do your training, you know, correctly, very well trained, they’re still, you know, dogs, and they’re going to make mistakes every now and then they’re not robots. And so it is, of course, still important to obviously follow your doctor’s advice as far as how often to check your blood sugars and working with those medical different medical equipment and things such as the continuous glucose monitor, because that way you do kind of have almost like a two layer safety thing of you have the dog, and then you have your medical device, because for instance, to you know, what if what if your dog is sick, you know, and your dog’s not able to be with you, and what if, you know, sometimes dogs, they do, you know, service dogs, they just need a break. And a lot of times people you know, you may think, you know, the dogs are working all the time, and for the most part they are but I do encourage my clients to to try to give their dogs a break when they can, obviously, you know, mental enrichment, just letting them you know, be able to sniff other things besides, you know, sniffing for that diabetic alerts that getting out in nature and just allowing them to be a dog, which is important for any dog, but especially a service dog that’s just working, you know, all the time and everything.
Rayanne Craven
But once again, that’s where it comes down to you want a dog that loves it, that really just loves to work and to find that set, and it’s just super motivated for because it’s not fair, if you have a dog that’s not super interested in it to really, you know, well, you’re not gonna be able to make them, you know, that’s gonna become pretty evident pretty quickly. But you know, you just want a dog that just absolutely loves it. And that way, it makes it easier for you and easier for the dog because you’re not going to be able to force them. And then it you know, it just kind of makes it tough on everybody even try to. So I just want that dog that’s really, really motivated for the you know, the scent once you start pairing it with food, and then you can just kind of go from there.
Kayla Fratt
Yeah, that makes sense. And of does sound quite familiar to what we do. Are there any other things that you look at within the dog or kind of the handler as part of a successful team? I can imagine you also probably want a dog that’s pretty socially oriented and can or will or has bonded really tightly with their handler. I mean, obviously that’s important for any detection dog discipline, but when you’re really expecting the dog to, you know, be able to do detect, what I imagine is a relatively subtle odor change in you, you know, one of my dogs I can imagine would be good at this and my other. My younger dog is a very independent guy, he doesn’t really find a lot of value in being really close to me, even though he is very snippy and emotionally attuned to me, he doesn’t really like working close to me. So anyway, does is my hypothesis correct? What else do you kind of look for as far as helping make a team successful in this line of work?
Rayanne Craven
Yeah, yeah, so definitely a dog that, like you said, is really socially connected, really bonded with their person. And my in person service dog work that I do with the organization that I work with, we, it’s not like, we take a dog and fully train it from puppy to adult dog, and then you know, transfer it over to the person, we actually get a puppy from a breeder and place that puppy right in the home with the person and they’re part of the training process the entire time. So from baby puppy, all the way to usually about year and a half to two years old, the dog is fully matured, you know, fully trained, sometimes it may take a little bit longer, because every dog is different. And depending to on the client, you know, you have to be really considerate, of course, with as a dog trainer, you know, with any client, but especially someone that has, you know, a medical condition and possibly, you know, other medical disabilities, you know, they’re not going to be able to train every single day, you know, and which means either, you know, I’m not able to train every day myself, but, you know, if they’re in the hospital for long periods of time, and things like that, there could be some, some setbacks, and so I try to talk with my clients, you know, because sometimes they do get upset, because they’ve gotten far back on their training, you know, we just have to take it one day at a time, and, you know, we’re gonna work through the process.
Rayanne Craven
So that’s where, you know, really does help to have a dog that’s, you know, super motivated by it. So even if you do have to take a little time off, when you come back to it, the dogs like, oh, great, we’re doing this again, you know, and, and they’re super, super motivated for it. But yeah, the dog, really, you know, I really like for them to have a good bond with their person. And the whole kind of other side with it being service dog training, you know, this dog has to go everywhere. And so not only does the dog just have to be good at its job, you know, the task, part of the training, you know, the medical alert, they also, you know, have to be great in public and can’t be super distracted by other things by dogs, by people, by sounds, you know, all different things. And so we do have to expose them, you know, to all different manner of things, so that can be exposed to later on. So, you do have some dogs that maybe they’re absolutely fantastic at, you know, medical alert, but they just cannot cope in public, whether it’s some fear, or you know, if there’s any aggression, they’re likely not just going to make the cut anyway, as a service dog, but usually, you know, it makes a little fear or maybe too much like exuberance, like the dog just goes absolutely. Bonkers for lack of better words, as far as like jump in, you know, trying to get to people because they, they are so social, that they just really will really want to get to people, but at home, they’re fantastic, you know, their tasks. And so that can be kind of hard, you know, talking with people, if they really wanted the dog to go everywhere with them, it may not be a good choice, but the dog can still help them out at home, you know, and that’s where you have a what we call like, at home service dogs, where the dogs are still really able to help them at home, particularly like at nights if it’s a diabetic alert, but the dog just isn’t able to go, you know, everywhere in public, maybe they’re okay to go to some pet friendly places every now and then. But as far as being able to, you know, stay under a table and be quiet at a restaurant may not work out. And that doesn’t make him a bad dog, obviously, it just means they’re maybe not cut out for full public access, as it’s called, work. And so to have a dog that’s able to do both things is really, really special. And then once again, you know, I’ve had some dogs that were absolutely phenomenal and public.
Rayanne Craven
But yeah, they just weren’t super motivated for that Senate work. And that that was really hard to because you’re like, oh my gosh, this dog because really, public access is the hardest thing to train for. Because you can ever train for everything. You know, there’s, there’s always something that’s going to happen out in the world that just throws you for a loop, you know that you’re like, Okay, well, you know, I didn’t think I would have to train for that. But so when you have the dog that’s just really, really great out in public, and then they’re not able to do the task that makes it really hard.
Rayanne Craven
But for the most part, the you know, I’ve only had a few dogs where they just really weren’t super motivated. But for the most part that the task training comes pretty natural to these guys. And that’s where like I said to picking a good breeder, or you know, if you’re doing evaluations on dogs, you know, kind of looking for those You know, personality traits, like I was talking about being really food motivated and really just kind of nosy, using their nose a good bit. And sniffing it really comes in handy. And you know, getting a dog, whether it’s from a shelter, or whether it’s from a breeder or wherever, just looking for those characteristics can can really help in the long run. Yeah,
Kayla Fratt
that absolutely makes a lot of sense. Well, I think I’d love to kind of round out this conversation with maybe a bit of a basic question. So how often are these dogs actually making alerts? Is this the sort of thing where a dog could go its entire career without having an event that they’re involved in? Or are they more likely to be doing this on like a daily or weekly basis? And I’m sure that varies quite a bit, depending on the disease and other management on the healthcare side. But just to kind of give a give me a ballpark, I really have no idea where that goes.
Rayanne Craven
Yeah, yeah. So typically, it’s going to be every day. And once again, that’s where got to have a really motivated dog for them to do this every single day. Pretty much like except for the diabetic alert, it’s every day, every other day, definitely several times a week, there may be some other medical conditions, where hopefully, it’s not happening that often. But it could, you know, and so these dogs being able to do this day in, day out, and you do even though the dog may be doing it, you know, pretty much every single day, I do really have my clients even after I, you know, quote, unquote, kind of graduate them because that’s another aspect that people may not know about service dogs, at least in the United States, there’s no official certification.
Rayanne Craven
For service dog, there’s no legal certification, as long as the dog is performing some sort of task. And something like emotional support is not considered a task, it has to be a specific task, like a medical alert of some kind or retrieval task of some sort, that helps mitigate that specific person’s disability. So there’s no legal certification or anything like that. But when I, you know, quote, unquote, graduate a client, I still tell them, you know, yes, you know, you’re graduated, but you need to train at least once a week with your dog, get out, you know, keep collecting samples, keep, you know, doing some training sessions with the little sentence or hiding it on your person, because maybe like you said, you know, if the person’s diabetes, or whatever medical condition is pretty well manage, the dog may not be alerting as often.
Rayanne Craven
And so we still want to keep that motivation up. Because know, you’re not always going to surely have treats on you, you know, if you’re out and about in a store or something, the dog alerts on you, yes, I want the client to really praise the dog, and everything, but we still want to keep that motivation super high. So keeping that level of training to where the dog is alerting, you know, as soon as possible. As soon as they detect that scent, we want to keep doing those, those training sessions.
Rayanne Craven
But yeah, they they’re typically alerting pretty regularly. And that’s where, you know, we’re making that transition from, you know, doing training sessions to actual what we call live alerting on the person. Typically, I have clients that were still in the training process, and they’ll, you know, message me or whatever, I think they’re trying to tell me, you know, about blood sugar, because maybe we haven’t, we’re still kind of in the process of teaching whatever alert, so maybe the doctors just, you know, quote, unquote, acting weird. And they’re like, I didn’t check my blood sugar, and it was, you know, starting to get low. And so what I typically have my clients do is keep like, a little bit of a journal of, okay, you know, what, what was the dog doing, you know, what was your blood glucose level, and so we can kind of see is the dog actively picking up on the scent, you know, without us, you know, having that 10. And that’s great if they are and then we kind of keep that record. And that’s when, you know, along with all the public access training stuff, once that’s kind of complete, if I have, you know, months records of this dog doing live alerts that lets me know, the dog understands the job.
Rayanne Craven
And then we just switch to more of like a kind of a maintenance training versus like, Okay, we still need to be actively training until this dog makes this kind of switch over from structured training sessions to actually doing these these live alerts and everything.
Kayla Fratt
Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Rayanne. I feel like I’ve learned a lot. Is there anything that you’d like to circle back to or expand upon before we round out here?
Rayanne Craven
Um, the only thing I would say is, yeah, if your this is something you’re interested in, there’s a lot of good resources out there. Like I said, you know, Debbie Kay’s, the super snoopers program is fantastic. She does have a book, they have the online course that I took. It’s something that you know, if you’ve got a background in synth work, which I’m sure a lot of you guys that are listening do. It’s something you could definitely make a transition to. There are some differences like we’ve talked about, but it’s something that you know, if you’re interested in and I really recommend pursuing it, because we definitely need more just good service dog trainers, because unfortunately, there’s some people out there that, you know, I guess in dog training in general that, you know, they’re scamming these people, you know, and they’re, they’re producing dogs that don’t alert, you know, correctly, and then charging a lot of money. And, you know, these, these people are getting scammed. And so I really think we need more trainers out there that can at least help with it, maybe you don’t want to do this full time, you know, and completely understand that because there is a lot of a lot of things that go into it, you know, not just the set work part of it.
Rayanne Craven
But even if you just wanted to offer, you know, help for people that needed, you know, just the medical alert side of it, and, you know, didn’t want to touch, like the public access or any other tasks, that’s something you could totally do, even if it’s just online consulting, which is what I do. You know, and helping these people make that, you know, transition because a lot of it is similar, like we’ve talked about, as far as you know, not making sure the since contaminated, and pairing that scent with a reward. And you can really help a lot of people, you know, in doing this and helping them train their own dog because there’s, there’s a big need for it. And there’s just not a lot of good resources out there for people to have that. So yeah, if you’re, if you’re interested in it, I really recommend reaching out, you know, to me, or any of these other organizations, like I mentioned that to help, you know, because we definitely needed
Kayla Fratt
Yeah, definitely well, and we’ll be able, we’ll be sure to link some resources for folks in the show notes and how to contact you. So with that, where can people find you online? If they’re more if they’re interested in learning more about this line of work or? Or just, you know, following you online? Yeah, yeah.
Rayanne Craven
So, I mean, I’m on Facebook, just Rayanne Craven, on Instagram, as well at Ray The Dog Trainer. And also I’m available like for the service dog Consulting at tenaciousdogtraining.com. And then my email is just [email protected] So any one of those avenues is is perfectly fine to reach me on.
Kayla Fratt
Well, again, thank you so much, and for everyone, I hope I hope I hope you learned a lot and are feeling inspired to get outside and be a canine conservationist in whatever way suits your passions and skill set. You can find out more about K9Conservationists, join our courses, buy bento boxes, whatever it is you need all over at K9conservationists.org. Until next time!