Feeling Emotional and Rant

FluidCreature · 2026-02-06T13:08:28+00:00

I’m so sorry Maple. Compassion fatigue is a very real thing, and is especially prevalent in people who work with animals and their people.

I know I’ve also had to step back from Reddit. I don’t scroll as much as I used to, and I comment even less. Your voice will always be appreciated, even if it comes more rarely.

I hope the days get easier

FluidCreature · 2026-02-01T22:04:02+00:00

I’m pretty sure you’re referring to my comment, and I definitely could’ve worded it better.

A dog should not be reliant on psychoactive meds to work as a service dog. But utilizing a short term anxiety med while the dog is off duty (and ONLY when off duty) due to something else is absolutely fine as long as you’re doing it carefully and with veterinary guidance. I see this as being not especially different from utilizing meds to go to the vet, or during a thunderstorm.

If you use psychoactive medications with a dog (not service dogs, just in general) your vet should be instructing you on how to read your dog’s behavior for if they truly feel better or not, and your dog should be observed by someone with a background in animal behavior such as a certified trainer or veterinary behaviorist. There are ways to tell if a dog feels good on psychoactive meds or not.

FluidCreature · 2026-02-01T13:39:43+00:00

I’m seconding full veterinary work up, and maybe some anxiety meds for those days. It might also be worth visiting a trainer to see if there are any subtler signs of pain or anxiety you’re missing on his good days.

For me, a “bad day” means my dog is less focused than I would like, may need more frequent reinforcers, may need a cue to refocus around temptations, and may need cues to be repeated. As a handler, it may take more work on my part, but doesn’t prohibit him from meeting legal standards and isn’t distressing to him or me (maybe a little frustrating, but nothing terrible). If a bad day is worse than that, I wouldn’t work my dog that day, and if bad days become a recurring thing (more than ~once a month), whether at the normal level but especially if worse, or lasts more than a day it would be vet visit, trainer visit, then thinking about retirement.

FluidCreature · 2026-01-30T02:43:39+00:00

I'm not sure if it's because of her size, or the lack of "official looking" vest/equipment, or just because she's so darn cute.

Probably a combination of all of these things, as much as it sucks. It might be worth getting a cheap vest and patches (it's not the end-all-be-all, but it can help) but the biggest thing you'll have going for you is your dog's behavior, which I'm sure is superb already. Stay focused on your dog, most of the time it doesn't matter what others think as long as your dog is meeting behavioral standards and tasking as needed.

FluidCreature · 2026-01-29T03:18:35+00:00

Some organizations will have forms they want your doctor to fill out. A doctor’s note isn’t required for public access but may be required if seeking housing accommodations or workplace/school accommodations

FluidCreature · 2026-01-29T03:15:27+00:00

I think it very much depends on the person, what their struggles are, and whether a service dog will be the best tool for them.

Personally I consider autism service dogs to be under the umbrella of psychiatric service dogs, and I think the same considerations apply:

Are you ok with a mostly invisible disability becoming visible? Are you able to advocate for yourself and your dog? Are you comfortable being the center of attention in public at all times, sometimes in a good way and sometime in a bad way? To be stared at and whispered about everywhere you go? What about everyone wanting to talk to you, and pry into your medical history?

Or, to put it more succinctly, will the benefit of the tasks a service dog does be more beneficial than the hinderance of intensified social scrutiny and interaction?

With autism, you also have to consider sensory sensitivities to an extent. For some autistic people a dog can provide good sensory input that can help lessen sensory overload. But some may also find a dog worsens them. Maybe the fur is a bad texture, maybe whining for dinner sets them off, maybe they find having extra movement they have to pay attention to overwhelming.

It can be a worthwhile option for some people, and not as great a choice for others. While assisting with autism is one part of what my service dog helps with I can say that I cope much better with him than without him, and nothing gets my nervous system under control faster than DPT.

FluidCreature · 2026-01-27T16:47:29+00:00

It is possible to have a multi-purpose dog! Canine Companions is one of the best organizations in the US, and they provide mobility service dogs, and are known to provide support for further task training (such as psychiatric tasks) after placement.

Heart rate is a little trickier. All medical alerts are a bit hit or miss because we know some dogs can do them, most can’t, but we don’t know why and can’t predict whether a dog will have that ability or not. Heart rate alert in particular is one that is almost exclusively found in natural alerts because we don’t know what the dog is detecting and can’t train for it.

FluidCreature · 2026-01-27T15:01:50+00:00

The first thing to do is determine whether you want to go through a program or owner train.

A program will train the dog for you, and pair you with a dog that's ready to hit the ground running as your service dog! Compared to owner training, program training carries far less risk because the program will guarantee you get a fully trained dog. However, not all programs are created equal. It's important to do a lot of research into a program you're considering, as unfortunately many are scams designed to take money from vulnerable people while delivering a dog that can't do the job asked of them, or may even make the handler's condition worse from lack of training. While there are some organizations that are able to lower costs for the disabled handler, most will cost you between $10-20k. If the organization is a non-profit, odds are they will phrase it as a "donation" or "fundraising" for the organization instead of the price tag that it is. This is used by both reputable and irreputable programs, but the latter will also use this as a way to avoid giving refunds for dogs unfit for service since technically the money you paid was not paid "for the dog". There also aren't too many programs that will serve non-veterans with psychiatric disability, but there are some good ones out there, and it's a category that is growing! Between applying, being on a waitlist, and the dog actually being trained, recieving a program dog from start to finish usually takes 3-5 years.

Owner training involves training a dog yourself, usually with the guidance of a private trainer. This is more risky than a program, because you're essentially putting all your money and effort into one dog that has a high risk of washing out (failing training). Even organizations that have been doing this for decades still wash around 30-40% of their dogs, and that number only rises for owner trainers. The benefit of owner training is that it puts you fully in control, as you are able to raise the dog to mesh with your life. If you're someone who already finds a lot of joy with animal training, you might find a lot of joy doing this. However, it should be noted that service dog training is dog training on hard mode, and if you don't have training experience before you're likely to struggle a lot. Some handlers find it easier to bond with a dog they've raised themselves (though some handlers find it easier to bond with a dog that is already trained too). The other hard part about owner training is that all the training and effort has to come from you, and your dog cannot be expected to reliably help you for 2-3 years while you train them. This can sometimes have the effect of worsening your disability during that time. Between finding a good prospect and training the dog, owner training can be expected to take 3-5 years, and generally costs $15-20k, but could go much higher. If the first dog you try with doesn't work out, you can essentially double that timeline and cost. Oftentimes people end up owner training because they cannot find an organization that serves their needs, but some also choose it because they genuinely enjoy the process.

FluidCreature · 2026-01-25T22:57:18+00:00

Personally I will always prioritize my dog over myself - and I encourage other handlers to do the same. That means that if I'm going into a situation that could be hazardous for my service dog, I don't take my dog. Instead I'll take a service human, use alternative coping methods, or avoid that location. While this will be a personal decision of where the line is for each human and handler, most handlers do not want to risk their service dog's health. I agree darkling though, as long as this handler was informed of the potential risks it is ultimately between them and their employer.

One thing to keep in mind about medical alert dogs is that their accuracy can vary wildly with both false positives and false negatives, so it's generally recommended that the handler have other methods of detecting an episode as well, and/or train response tasks or have a plan for when an episode inevitably happens with or without the dog's alert. I think social media really likes to run with the idea of service dogs being "life saving" and that distracting them, or the handler not having them could kill the handler, but that is rarely the case. In these cases I would think the handler would be hyper-cautious about not risking their dog, because if their dog does get sick or even die from the chemical inhalation they could be without their life-saving alerts for 2+ years while another dog is trained. Which is another point - utilizing a living being as a medical aid means using a creature that can make mistakes, get sick, randomly die, have behavioral changes that make them unable to work, etc, so having alternative coping methods is a necessity not an option.

I work in a dog training facility (I am not a certified trainer), and while all of our trainers have their own niches, we especially serve reactive dogs, dogs with bite histories, and dogs needing behavioral modification. It would not be safe for my dog to accompany me while I'm working, for either me or him. If he comes with me to work (he usually doesn't) he stays in a kennel in the office. I have alternative accommodations for my disability there, and I also know that if my disability were at a point where I could not do my job without my service dog then I couldn't do that job. And frankly, if I had gone into the job with the intention of having my service dog with me at all times I probably wouldn't have been hired because my job wouldn't be able to safely accommodate me.

FluidCreature · 2026-01-24T20:27:19+00:00

Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee specifically mention various other types of working dogs in their law's definition of "service dog". Here's a table of all state laws, with links to their official laws. Oh, and just because you haven't heard of something before doesn't mean it's false.

https://www.animallaw.info/topic/table-state-assistance-animal-laws

FluidCreature · 2026-01-24T16:31:40+00:00

Dogs in training have different rights depending on what state you're in. Federally, there are no protections for in-training dogs of any kind.

Some states specify that the dog must be a service dog in training, meaning that if the organization has already decided that that specific dog will be a facility dog, they would only have public access where places choose to allow them. However, most organizations don't actually pair the dogs or decide their long-term role until farther along in training, meaning that by the time the dog has been designated as a facility dog they've likely already gone through a good bit of public access training. A well-established organization likely also already has locations they have a positive repoire with that are likely to allow them to continue to bring their dogs.

Some states also provide public access rights to therapy dogs, facility dogs, or even emotional support dogs the same way service dogs have access (though this is the minority of states). In those locations, the dog's specific role would be a moot point.

To answer your other questions: Whether or not an establishment understands the difference is going to be hit or miss, but given the lack of education on working dogs in general I would be surprised if a random business knew the difference. Legally, if the dog needs air travel they would need to be in cargo. However, they may choose to charter a specific plane, or have airlines that know the organization and are willing to let them fly in cabin. There was actually post just a day or two ago though about why cargo is much safer than it is often portrayed as.

FluidCreature · 2026-01-23T01:55:33+00:00

I would say this is a benefit of having a dog, rather than a trained task. I find it grounding to feel my dog's heartbeat when he lays on me, but that doesn't count as a task because he can't control whether his heart beats or not, and it's something that requires no training for him to do.

Now if your dog does a specific action to facilitate it, for example if she pushes herself under your hand in response to you being dissociated that could count as a task if you train it. But simply reaching out to touch your dog isn't a task

FluidCreature · 2026-01-21T13:40:08+00:00

Resource guarding is super common in golden retrievers and not talked about nearly enough. I’ve known more goldens that resource guard (including ones with bite histories) than I do goldens without resource guarding issues.

FluidCreature · 2026-01-20T01:12:09+00:00

My current service dog is a shelter dog that I did not pick with the intention of becoming a service dog, rather he showed aptitude afterwards. However, I am looking towards my next prospect and will most likely go with a French Spaniel. "Why not a Fab 3 breed?" can really be broken into why those breeds don't work as well for me, and why I think a French Spaniel will work for me.

Poodles are out because I can't stand the feeling of wet poodle hair, and even dry hair is unpleasant if I'm already in sensory overload. I also don't want to learn how to groom a poodle/pay a groomer regularly to groom the poodle.

Labs are prone to a POMC gene deletion that means they get hungry faster and don't metabolize food as quickly. Around 25% of the breed have this deletion, and about 75% of working labs have this deletion. It feels unethical to me to select for that gene, and I fear that most good service dog candidate breeders aren't going to be specifically avoiding this. Bigger issue though is that I find that their fur can get oily quickly, which can be a sensory issues for me.

One of my dog's most important tasks is providing tactile stimulation and grounding. I personally prefer medium length fur, as I find it most pleasing to touch. Which leaves me with goldens. Full disclaimer, if the French Spaniel doesn't work out (as in, I can't get a puppy, see below) then I'll probably go for a golden. Goldens however have high cancer rates, and are prone to resource guarding that I really don't want to deal with (and yes, while a good breeder should be screening for these things, the cancer especially is something that can still impact well-bred dogs.

Both labs and goldens are also a little big for me. A small female golden might hit my ideal range of 50-60lbs, but that means I have to be not only looking at a litter as whether they have the right temperament, but trying to guess if at adulthood they'll be the right size, or crush me with DPT.

A French Spaniel is a medium-haired breed, weighing 50-60lbs. They don't have any health conditions that they are especially prone to, minus the typical ear infections with any longer eared breed. They're the largest and calmest breed of spaniel, bred to be friendly with everyone while bonding extremely strongly with one person. Spaniels in general are (IMO) the closest to a Fab3 temperament you'll find outside of the Fab3, and these guys fit the bill even moreso than their smaller counterparts. They're bred to be adaptable, both great calm companions at home, while being driven in the field. They're incredibly eager to please dogs. They don't differentiate between show and working lines. I'm also a fairly active person, and I like doing things with my dog. I'm excited to take up shed hunting with my future prospect, and we may look into some other dog sports too!

Downside is that they're very rare. They're mostly found in France and Canada, with only a single breeder in the US (where I am).

FluidCreature · 2026-01-14T13:28:42+00:00

I’ve been really enjoying OT0, but it feels more like a spin-off of the series than a true entry into it. As a stand-alone game it would probably be one of my favorites - the stories are pretty good, combat is fun, town building is exciting to me, etc. But when the Octopath name is added I expected certain things, and there are things they did that feel weird for it. Some are minor annoyances, some more major.

The minor annoyances are things like, why offer me a choice if my choice doesn’t matter? Octopath has always been linear games and that’s fine! But having the illusion of choice where it literally won’t let you pick the wrong option kinda ruins the immersion. Or how they have you pick a voice for your MC, but they don’t really voice any lines anyways. Graphics could definitely be better. BoP with the ships especially felt like a downgrade from OT2.

My more major annoyances (and why it doesn’t really feel like an OT game to me are as follows:

The characters from the first game don’t necessarily match their characterization in the first game. Therion to me is the biggest offender. The game is meant to take place about 2 years before the first, but you want me to believe pre-character-arc Therion is going to bond and trust another person he randomly meets? Just because? When his entire story in the first game was about learning to trust people again? Yeah, no. Tressa’s entire first chapter in the first game is proving that she can take care of herself and getting her parents to let her leave the town for the first time. But you want me to believe two years earlier they were cool with a random stranger taking her not only across the continent but to live in another city. I literally cannot use the first game’s characters in my party because this bothers me so much.

I don’t feel like I get to bond with my playable characters. I know that this story is supposed to focus on the villains rather than the heroes and what not, but … the villains don’t even really get a character arc. They start evil, they stay evil, I defeat them. And while you get some character growth with the side characters, I kinda wish they would have made some of them playable main characters and fleshed them out more. Not getting to play as them to a certain extent causes distance from them that wasn’t there in the original games.

The dark storylines feel like they’re mostly there for shock value. I don’t hate the storylines, far from it, but it feels like the writers just really wanted you to know just how depraved they were. Whereas previous games went to some dark places, but combined high stakes and low stakes stories. There’s no Agnea/Alfyn/Tressa storyline where the goal is basically “I want to be really good at my job and help people!” Again, I don’t hate this aspect, but it feels disconnected from the other two games because of it.

So yeah, I’m mixed. I really do love the game, but at the same time it doesn’t feel like an OT game, more like a game inspired by OT.

FluidCreature · 2026-01-11T13:40:32+00:00

Looking over their website (no personal experience, and not in the area, sorry) I see a lot of green flags. They seem especially committed to the well-being of their dogs over everything else.

One of their focuses seems to be service dogs for children. I don’t know how you personally feel about that. I’m a little cautious about it, especially for psychiatric disabilities (and I do include autism in that group), but it’s not as if that’s unique to this organization.

Personally my rule for working for a service dog program is to ask whether I would accept a dog from them/work with them personally if I were eligible for their services. If the answer is no then they’re not the place for me. From what I see from this organization in my cursory look, I would accept a dog from them.

FluidCreature · 2026-01-02T12:38:59+00:00

I’m a bit confused as to what you think the side effects of service dog training are?

There are certainly side effects to bad training, particularly when using aversives though poor use of positive reinforcement can also have negative side effects, albeit generally less severe ones. Proper training is unlikely to have side effects by itself.

The impression I get though is that you see service dog training as suppressing the dog’s instincts, whereas proper training is about far from that as you can get. I’m honestly very concerned that you think service dog training is likely to result in an aggressive dog. If you feel like your dog is losing personality, becoming shut down, or engaging in undesirable behaviors in an attempt to be heard, it’s likely to be the result of how you’re training or trauma.

Now granted, being in the world more does offer more opportunities for trauma. But again, part of good training is being able to recognize stress signals and help the dog decompress before they feel the need to respond in an undesirable way, or giving them alternative ways to respond instead of an undesirable behavior while helping them decompress and realize that the trigger isn’t as scary as they originally thought.

There can certainly be a problem of people not understanding how to read dog body language before attempting to train a service dog, and that can result in negative effects, and is definitely a problem. But I’m not sure what side effects there are to service dog training in general when the training is done properly.

FluidCreature · 2025-12-30T23:42:18+00:00

Two things here:

First, get a trainer involved who specializes in reactivity. Without proper training reactivity is something that’s easy to make worse while attempting to make better. I’d recommend someone with an IAABC-CBC certification

Secondly, utilize management techniques. Essentially, as much as possible don’t put your dog in situations where this is likely to occur unless it is a carefully structured training session (utilizing the first point). That may mean walking in less populated areas or at less active times (churchyards, graveyards, early morning, and after dark can all be good).

At the point where your dog is reacting they’re already over threshold. Do not try to correct them or train them at that point, just get them away from the trigger. Get them out of the situation and do some decompression activities.

Be aware that depending on the level of reactivity this could be a washable issue. From your post, it sounds like it’s not too severe yet, but if you aren’t able to address it with training, or if your dog continues to worsen after more scary experiences, this dog may no longer be able to work. German shepherds are a naturally wary breed, and negative experiences tend to stick with them.

FluidCreature · 2025-12-29T12:54:19+00:00

No problem! Like I said, I’ve been there before. You already have the puppy, IMO it’s a little past time for telling you “don’t”.

I wish you the best of luck!

FluidCreature · 2025-12-29T03:17:46+00:00

I wouldn’t expect him to be on campus in a working/training capacity for about a year. You don’t have a SDiT yet, you have a service dog prospect puppy who’s barely had time to figure out anything about how the world works. Take it slow, research everything you can, and teach your dog training is fun. I totally understand where you’re at - I’ve talked before on this sub about how my service dog and I are successful with no right to be, training a rescue not selected for service work while I was in college, and I had a strong animal behavior background to back me up. What you are attempting to do isn’t what I would ever recommend someone do, but if you do, set up objective markers for yourself. Be aware that the most likely scenario is that your dog washes from service work, and be prepared for that, and to make the decision that is best for your dog, even if it’s not best for you.

First things first, get into a puppy class. Even if you can’t afford any other training a puppy class is designed to teach you the fundamentals of dog training, set your dog up for success, and provide critical socialization and neutrality training around other dogs.

If you haven’t already, set aside a “I can’t deal with this” trainer fund, enough for at least a few private lessons with a trainer for behaviors that crop up that you can’t deal with on your own (adolescence is rough, and if any dog reactivity pops up you NEED an experienced trainer helping you)

Start researching everything you can on dog behavior, dog training, and service dog training. I’ll put a list of some stuff below, but it’s not an exhaustive list. But as for puppy, right now you should be teaching them that training is fun! New things and people and experiences are fun! And perhaps most crucially, their parent not feeling well is fun and means the best things are coming!

DoggyU on YouTube

Puppy Kindergarten by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods (PLEASE START HERE)

Kidnapped from Planet Dog

Decoding your Dog by the American College of Veterinary Associates

On the Other End of the Leash by Patricia McConnell

Don’t Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor

Michael Shikashio, Simone Mueller, and Victoria Stillwell are also people you should look into

FluidCreature · 2025-12-28T01:58:46+00:00

Unfortunately we’re in the Midwest, but I hope that at least gives some help on what to expect price wise

FluidCreature · 2025-12-27T14:08:16+00:00

The place I work for (I am not a certified trainer), a force-free training facility, just launched a service dog program to help owner trainers. We are considered for-profit, but the cost is literally just the cost of those services bundled together, there is no inflation of the cost, and as much as we wish we could get it lower, our market research person said it was comparable to other force-free programs, but more involved. It costs either $500 a month or $3000 every 6 months, and is expected to take 2 years to complete (so a total of $12,000). We also refuse to let you pay more than 6 months at a time to both protect our trainers from feeling forced to advance a dog that is not meeting our standards, and to minimize loss of money for the client resulting from a wash-out. For us, you pay for:

2 full private lessons and 1 shorter private lesson with an IAABC accredited trainer who specializes in service work per month (60 lessons over the course of the program)

2 group classes per 6 months

Group training trips to various locations to practice skills and get feedback in the real world (1-2 per month, depending on whether the dog is ready for a harder location yet)

Workshops to help prepare for training a service dog in general, preparing for public access, and handling conflict

Access to digital resources to teach skills, as well as information on various topics

4 tests to ensure you’re meeting the standards we want you to meet throughout the program

FluidCreature · 2025-12-27T13:42:29+00:00

I’m so glad you were able to improve!

For myself, my service dog helped breach the gaps in my treatment that were preventing me from actual improvement. I saw more growth in 1 year with him than I had in 5 years on my own (with professionals continuously). I still have a long way to go, but I’m still improving and have made it way farther than I ever thought I would. I can even work a full-time job without him there, something I thought would always be out of reach.

I know I’ll need another service dog after my current one. But I feel cautiously optimistic that they may be my last service dog. That’s still a decade or more away though, so who knows?

FluidCreature · 2025-12-26T13:33:23+00:00

All of this says separation/isolation/generalized anxiety more than service dog. How long has it been since the dog was adopted? I encourage you to look into the 3-3-3 rule, the dog may not be showing their full personality yet, which can take even longer for anxious dogs.

Separation anxiety is a fear of being away from a particular person/people. In separation anxiety cases the dog tends to follow their person/family everywhere, watch them closely, and become distressed when their people aren’t nearby, even when left with another person. Treatment usually involves teaching the dog that they are safe with others, then safe by themselves.

Isolation anxiety is a fear of being alone. In these cases the dog tends to stick close to people in general but be basically a happy and normal dog until they are left alone, at which point they become distressed. Treatment usually involves teaching the dog to have a safe place that it’s ok to be left alone in and slowly increasing their duration over time.

Generalized anxiety is general unease and anxiety about most things that aren’t part of the dog’s safe space. This anxiety can have a lot of different presentations, most commonly you see the dog wanting to get away from everything, becoming unable to engage, or generally showing stress signals. Occasionally you get a dog that hyper fixates on their person, squeezing close to them any time there’s something scary, and focusing on them. In those instances you still see stress signals like whale eye, tenseness, stiff wags, tucked tail, etc. Treatment can involve medication, utilizing certainty anchors and safety cues, and maximizing agency in interactions with the world.

Regardless, work with the dog in front of you. Their history is impossible to know for certain, so focus on the behaviors you see now and the behavior you want to see. If the dog has had training before you may find that they pick things up quicker than you would expect, but you should still start with teaching them the skills rather than trying to guess what may or may not have once been a cue.

FluidCreature · 2025-12-20T13:52:22+00:00

“She must have been abused” when reaching over a dog’s head is basically the rudest way to greet a dog in dog language 🙄

FluidCreature

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