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Beyond this end point, the dog is retired back into normal dog society. People who are somehow able or lucky enough to get a retired service dog will be very blessed as they can provide you with additional benefits aside from the normal companionship and amusement that you get from pets. This also gives you the chance to repay a dog that has helped one of human kind.
Since dogs are now expanding their career horizons, you will be able to select expert dogs that are trained in a variety of services. These retired career dogs may have been a seeing-eye dog, a rehabilitation facility dog or a nursery home dog. Police dogs are normally adopted by their human partners in the force immediately after the police dog's retirement. Your chances of being able to buy a retired police dog depend entirely on your lucky stars.
The seeing-eye dogs are trained to assist the blind. The dogs will act as the blind person's eyes and guide. Seeing-eye dogs are very good at helping blind people avoid accidents that normally would have happened without the assistance of the dogs. Assuming that the seeing-eye dog is trained at a young age, the dog would have already seen 8 years of service upon its retirement. When these dogs are retired, they are either adopted by its master or sold to help finance a new seeing-eye dog.
Some dogs are trained to work in children's nurseries. Well, work isn't really the right word here. Dogs are instinctively playful. They are brought into the nursery to play with children. Some facilities use dogs to assist in rehabilitation
Just like humans, trained dogs are sometimes taken out of service to be retrained in another area of discipline. The reason for retraining may from case to case. Several factors influence the decisions that are made when a dog is set for retraining. Among the most common of these factors are dog behavior, incompatibility issues for seeing-eye dogs and the health condition of a dog.
Before a dog is accepted into a training program, they enter as candidates and must pass intelligence and several physical tests. Even those dogs that fail to pass beyond candidate status are already extremely intelligent in their own right. These dog candidates that failed are still highly valued just for having been accepted into candidate status. Compared to the ordinary household dog, the service candidate is clearly a cut above the rest.
Even before entering candidacy, these dogs would have been extensively trained in comprehensive obedience courses that most household dogs do not receive. Just because they failed to pass doesn't mean that they are suddenly the lowest of the low. |
