My Firecracker: Lessons from Sky’s First Year as a Speech Therapy Dog
With July 4th rolling around, I’d like to briefly review the first year of partnership with my very own little firecracker of a therapy dog, Sky.
A now four-year-old Brittany spaniel, Sky is the highest energy dog partner I’ve worked with. Most of the time she’s an absolute delight.
She’s entertaining beyond measure.
She’s always ready for a good time.
And she absolutely adores people. But…
she can also be tightly-wound and a bit much to manage!
Sky’s temperament is incredibly similar to that of the late Johnny Utah (read his story in “What My Ever-Wiggling Brittany Taught Me About Animal-Assisted Speech Therapy”) and it brings me great joy to see her wagging tail and enthusiastic ear prick whenever she is actively included in sessions.
She learned to conserve her energy by taking naps on her bed during quieter sessions much quicker than Johnny did, and she knows a lot more tricks. But the constantly wired brain and body is the same, only younger and therefore with greater stamina. And sometimes this gets tricky…
Speech therapy dog Sky’s preferred location is wherever the kids are! Her high energy level usually brings delight to animal-assisted speech therapy session, but can also cause a bit of chaos at times!
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Lesson One: Prioritizing Pre-Work Routines for a Speech Therapy Dog
Sky actually belongs to my mom, who lives in a separate house on our property. She typically works with me one day a week, happily serving as my mom’s lovely companion the rest of the time.
She clearly recognizes that getting her special collar (with engraved buckle in case she were to get out of the office unattended) and therapy dog bandana put on means it’s an extra special day. On these mornings she goes wild when I come to the door to retrieve her.
This excitement extends through the car ride—though she has learned to settle in the car for the most part—and to our arrival at work. To burn off the morning adrenaline I found a three part, 15 minute routine to complete that helps her start the work day in a more focused state of mind.
Each morning upon arrival at the office I:
· Throw a toy to retrieve and play tug intensely for about ten minutes, then
· Give Sky a neck and back massage while helping her co-regulate by taking slow-deep breaths, and finally
· Put her through a few obedience skills using a calm voice and slow hand motions, especially some focused work like off-leash heeling and down-stays
(To see a video clip, click here.)
The challenge is, I’m not a morning person. So I’m not always as raring to go as my little counterpart is and sometimes I’m running late and have to compress our routine. One day, I thought I could skip our routine altogether and return a phone call before my first client arrived instead.
Big mistake.
Sky was as happy to see the kid as always, but she was completely unable to focus. She seemed to forget everything she knew about polite greetings (enough of a challenge for her anyway) and how to perform basic behaviors like backing out of the way and waiting to be called to provide deep pressure input. She was underfoot, “speaking” in excitement instead of responding to my directions to sit and wait, and just generally causing havoc.
And what did I do?
I kept repeating my directions, a little louder and with bigger hand signals, but without success.
Yikes! When a client doesn’t respond I know to change my tactic, maybe provide a sensory regulating activity, simplify my request, or provide more support in understanding what I want. Yet here I was, getting frustrated at poor overstimulated Sky who I had neglected to properly support with her morning routine.
And of course I was filming that day. To see a brief clip of what a totally wild Sky (due to my negligence) looks like, click here.
In a more relaxed moment, speech therapy dog Sky provides non-judgmental listening and motivation for extra repetitions as a child with apraxia practices telling her the names of Minecraft characters.
Lesson Two: Managing This Speech Therapy Dog’s Excitement Triggers
Sky settled into work life well after starting late last spring, with summer, fall, and winter being relatively uneventful. When early spring rolled back around though, we started to have issues.
As a Brittany, Sky was bred for finding birds. She excels in her “birdiness”. So when the bushes outside our floor to ceiling windows became infested with winged creatures, she was on high-alert at all times. Sometimes she’d let out high-pitched shrieks of excitement/frustration, but mostly she’d run through the office frantically trying to find a way to get to them. Taking her outside for bathroom breaks became frustrating as she’d pull on the leash and struggle to concentrate on actually getting the job done.
This constant state of heightened arousal also led to some unwanted behaviors with the kids, most notably releasing her pent-up energy by mounting anyone sitting or lying on the floor. While I’ve always had to watch her for this behavior when kids get really silly and roll around on the floor, I could previously stop her easily by either catching her immediately and redirecting her with some commands or briefly separating her in my inner office.
With the bird excitement spilling over, it became a frequent, almost compulsive occurrence over a couple office visits and was simply unacceptable. It didn’t help that kids (and sometimes parents) often thought it was funny and shrieked or laughed, further amplifying the excitement.
What helped was limiting Sky’s ability to see the birds and changing our equipment to keep her attentive while outside. Much as I help my clients do, I limited distractions to improve focus.
For Sky, this meant adding a frosted window cling material to the bottom three feet of my office windows. This made an immediate difference. She was more interactive with the kids and able to rest during quiet moments again.
Sky stayed calmer during animal-assisted speech therapy sessions once her view to the bushes full of birds was blocked this spring.
I also taught her to wear a halter for our walks instead of relying on the flat collar. A halter gives me control of her head so she can’t physically pull and gag herself. Paired with a “with me” command and treat reinforcements for staying at my side became a powerful tool for keeping her attentive as we walked to and from her biobreak area.
While I worried some might misunderstand and see it as a muzzle, the immediate benefit we gained made it worth it. For the most part, we’ve been able to go back to the flat collar now that the influx of spring birds has ebbed, though I still find it handy at times.
(Fortunately I had just participated in an online dog reactivity course through Diverse Dogs in which training to a head halter had been very systematically broken into steps, so I had the know-how to train Sky to accept it fairly quickly. Dogs will often resist the halter at first if not properly introduced, so I highly recommend working with a trainer if this is a new tool for you.)
Between the window covering and the increased focus outdoors, Sky’s excessive excitement and subsequent mounting behavior immediately reduced to pre-spring levels. Thank goodness!
Sky’s extroverted and goofy personality make her a big hit with many kids receiving animal-assisted speech therapy!
Lesson Three: Advocating for the Dog’s Needs during Animal-Assisted Speech Therapy
Because Sky can be quite cute in her excitement, some of my clients and their caregivers are prone to amp her up when they enter the office.
I had a middle-schooler realize if he stomps his foot she’ll run in a nervous little “zoomie” loop (more scientifically called a Frenetic Random Activity Periods, or FRAP). While he thought it was hilarious and she appeared to come right back for more, I recognized from her body language she was actually quite startled and unsure of how to act.
Her incredibly affiliative nature was working against her; she thought the best course of action was to come back toward the humans in the room even though she felt stressed.
In this case I had to put an immediate, black and white rule in place that we do not stomp around the dogs. While my client’s initial reaction was to think I was joking, when I told him I wouldn’t be able to bring Sky any more if continued to scare her, the boy immediately took the matter seriously and insisted he loved playing with Sky. We then had an impromptu perspective taking lesson in which the client and I co-created a comic strip conversation about the situation and discussed how it feels to be scared.
Unfortunately, this adolescent insisted he loves to be scared (indeed “online horror games” is a preferred topic of his) and ultimately did not deeply understand why scaring Sky was harmful. However, he was willing and able to follow the new rule and greet her with better dog etiquette after that with quick reminders as he entered the office.
I’ve continued to work in little lessons about watching Sky’s (and Delta’s) body language for consent, while recognizing that Sky can give some mixed signals as she tries to please.
In another case, it was actually a parent who tried to hype Sky up more by petting her roughly and baby-talking. That was easier to stop; I simply informed her that Sky struggles to stay calm and I would appreciate if she petted her slowly or offered treats instead.
A Year of Animal-Assisted Speech Therapy with My “Firecracker”
Sky was initially hesitant to participate in deep pressure input “squishes”, but now it’s hard to make her wait for the child to ask! DPI for sensory regulation is one of the most common ways I incorporate my therapy dogs into animal-assisted speech therapy sessions.
In some ways Sky has been my easiest speech therapy dog partner to integrate into the work. She is exceptionally quick to learn new skills and highly driven to please. She’s never given me any concern about safety around clients. She’s lightning quick at shaking off stressful moments.
But she’s also challenged my skills as a handler to manage her excitement levels across a hectic day of seeing clients.
At the end of every work day, when you would expect she’d be exhausted, Sky is just getting started. We often end the day with (yet another) game of fetch and a loooong hike in the woods. The next morning she’s up at the crack of dawn and running to where her work gear is kept in hopes of another day at the office.
To see more of Sky (as well as more experienced speech therapy dog Delta and new recruit-in-training Zephyr), follow us on Instagram @speech_dogs.
If you’d like to learn how to partner with a therapy dog yourself, get your copy Paws for Progress: Integrating Animal-Assisted Interventions Into Your Speech-Language Pathology Practice or enroll in the self-paced, online course Talk to the Paw: Foundations for Therapy Animal Inclusion in a Professional Setting today!
May your day be filled with puppy wiggles and children’s giggles,
Sharlet
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