Service dog training can run $25,000 or more, according to the American Kennel Club. There can also be a long wait — one to five years — to obtain a service dog, the group Medical Mutts says.
Not every puppy can grow up to be a "working" dog.
It takes a certain temperament, specific cognitive skills and months of formal instruction. And at least half the dogs in training to be workers fail, which costs time and money and adds to the wait for service animals, experts say.
For now, there is no way to predict which dogs will make good workers, but canine behavioral scientists are trying to change that. They are studying puppies in hopes of developing a behavior model that can predict the likelihood a dog will successfully complete training and enter the canine workforce.
"The goal is to make as many of them as possible graduate, and to help more people who need them more quickly," says Emily Bray, an assistant professor in the University of Arizona College of Veterinary Medicine, whose studies focus on puppies and adolescent dogs chosen as future service dogs. Being able to better predict their aptitude for work would also help the dogs, as "we want them to enjoy and thrive in the jobs we put them in," she says.
Service dog training can run $25,000 or more, according to the American Kennel Club (AKC). There can also be a long wait - one to five years - to obtain a service dog, the group Medical Mutts says.
Like humans, dogs can have different jobs.
A service or assistance dog has a one-on-one relationship with its human, whether the dog is helping a physically disabled person or someone coping with mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress.
Detection or search dogs, on the other hand, locate hidden explosives, drugs or cadavers, and in some cases are trained to sniff out certain diseases. While they are connected to a handler, they are much more independent than service animals. The AKC says there are about 15,000 working detection dogs in the United States.
Both of these are different from therapy dogs, which don't go through formal training. Therapy dogs are volunteer animals who cheer and comfort their owners and others, such as hospital patients, stressed-out college students and disaster survivors.
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The independence factor
GEAR JUNKIE
"If you are a dog that searches for a living, you need to be independent - you don't always need a human for help - and you need motivation for the search," says Brian Hare, a professor of evolutionary anthropology and psychology and neuroscience and founder of the Duke Canine Cognition Center.
"On the flip side, a dog placed for service, to help somebody with a physical disability, for example, trained to open doors, pick up keys, help with the laundry - getting clothes in and out of the dryer - that dog has to have self-control and be dependent," Hare adds. "You want them to be tightly bonded and concentrated on their person."
Lucia Lazarowski, a research assistant professor at the Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine, and chief scientist at its canine performance sciences program - whose research tests future detection dogs - agrees.
"Detection dogs have to be able to search arenas and other locations with loud noises and other distractions," Lazarowski says. "They have to be confident and not be distracted. They do take direction from a handler but are not by that person's side looking for reassurance."
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Clues to trainability
Such traits are important and "play a significant role in a dog's potential" as a working dog, says Clara Wilson, a postdoctoral researcher in the Penn Vet Working Dog Center at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. Wilson studies dogs' responses to odors. However, being able to link these behaviors to future success remains a work in progress. "The connection between specific characteristics and actual working outcomes is still not fully understood," she says.
Yet some behaviors provide clues, Bray says, such as a puppy's willingness to make eye contact with humans and its attention span "when you use a high-pitched voice to talk to them," she says. "We call it 'dog-directed speech' … we know that, in general, both babies and dogs are more likely to pay attention to someone talking in a high-pitched voice."
Puppies "who are looking around the room when you speak or snoozing in a corner" are less likely to be trainable, she says.
But Bray points out that dogs' experiences vary during their early months with the humans who raise them, which can affect the outcome, "so we can't know with 100 percent accuracy" if they will make good service dogs even with improved prediction.
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'Adorable' science
Hare and his wife, Duke University research scientist Vanessa Woods, are among those looking for early reliable indicators suggesting promising service dogs.
In 2018, they launched Duke's "Puppy Kindergarten," a National Institutes of Health-funded study. They have tested 101 puppies and hope to develop a statistical model that can predict which animals will make good service dogs.
Starting at eight weeks old - and every two weeks after until the puppies reach 20 weeks - the researchers run the pups through cognitive games, a form of aptitude testing. It will, however, take several years and more dogs before the scientists can draw conclusions, they say.
"Never has scientific research been so adorable," Hare says.
The games they play with the puppies often suggest the jobs that might best suit them. Hare describes one:
"We put a piece of kibble in an open Tupperware bowl," Hare explains. "The dog comes over, knocks the top off and gets the kibble. Then you lock the top. Some dogs work really hard and are persistently trying to get the food on their own. That's a really independent dog, persistent with search. Perfect for detection.
"Then there's the dog quick to give up and dependent on its human," he continues. "He immediately makes eye contact with people in the room and its look says: 'Hey, you have a thumb - help me out here.' The first outcome predicts a good detection dog, the second predicts a good service dog."
Lazarowski agrees. A good detection dog "will keep at it," she says. Although it might seek further direction from its handler, that's a good thing, "a sign of flexibility," she adds.
Many of the tests Lazarowski employs measure how dogs react to a distraction. Detection dogs must "quickly recover from something surprising or startling and not be afraid," she says.
Toward this end, the scientists try to rattle adolescent dogs with huge inflatable dancing dolls or a blast from an air horn. With young puppies, they open umbrellas, expose them to people wearing "weird" costumes, or to children's toys that move and make noise. "Do they approach and explore? Or retreat and avoid?" she says. "We want them to do the former."
In one study, she tested 60 puppies beginning at age 3 months up until they were a year old, then followed with a second study when they were 3 to 4 years old.
Although the studies were designed to evaluate the testing procedures, the scientists found that the better the dogs performed as puppies, the more likely they were to succeed, which suggests "that traits associated with working success are apparent at a young age," Lazarowski says.
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Growing into self-control
The Duke scientists have found that most traits necessary for training emerge between the ages of 8 to 16 weeks. By 8 weeks, puppies can read hand gestures such as pointing and show the beginnings of working memory, meaning they can retain information such as "sit" or "stay" for short periods.
This is a change from when the puppies were younger and would sit or stay for only a few seconds, "then forget what they were doing," Woods says.
By 10 weeks, their self-control improves, and they begin making eye contact with humans. By 13 to 14 weeks, they can adjust to changes in previously learned behavior; for example, they can work out a new route that leads to food if a previous path has been blocked. "The ones who can figure it out faster are more likely to be good service dogs," Woods says.
Hare and Woods describe their work in a new book, "Puppy Kindergarten," and say it's also applicable to companion animals. "Many of the qualities we love about service dogs are the same ones we would like to see in our pets," Woods says.
The couple also are "puppy raisers," living with nearly-1-year-old "Neutron," a Labrador/Golden Retriever mix and a member of the current kindergarten class. They worry about his service dog prospects, as he hasn't performed well on any of the tests. But if he fails the training, he will join their family permanently. "Either way, we will be proud of him," Woods says.
