CAREGIVER FOLLOW ME
How You Can Train Your Own Alzheimer’s Assistance Dog In Your Own Home
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What Is An Alzheimer’s Assistance Dog? An Alzheimer’s dog lives at home with an Alzheimer’s patient, their caregiver(s) and other family members. This is an inside dog as opposed to those unfortunate canines that are regulated to spending their lives physically apart from their family units, residing outside of the home, receiving minimal human love and contact. The Alzheimer’s dog is trained to watch over the patient, especially at night, and alert the chief caregiver if the patient gets up. The dog is trained to identify an imminent “wandering” situation, alert the caregiver by making physical contact with them, and lead the caregiver to the location of the patient and then go into a “sit-stay” position in order to act as a distraction for the patient. The dog is a warm, fuzzy partner, helping the caregiver give the best possible care to the Alzheimer’s patient. With wandering under control, the patient can often remain within the family; the caregiver gets an ally and a night’s rest. Home usually provides a more positive environment than that found in an institution, whether a group or nursing home. Financially, it is much more feasible to keep an Alzheimer’s patient in their home. Therapeutically, the home environment is usually more positive for the patient than living elsewhere. STORY An example of an Alzheimer’s dog in action would be a beautiful female, Border Collie mixed mutt that was adopted from an animal shelter just hours prior to being put down. The dog was adopted, trained, and then placed with a family where the chief caregiver was wheelchair-bound. The Alzheimer’s patient was her husband. After the dog’s placement, late one night the wife was jarred awake by the dog, which insisted that she get up and follow it. The dog led the caregiver to the kitchen where there were flames leaping from the gas stove. Thankfully, the caregiver was able to get the potential fire under control before the entire home was set ablaze. Reviewing that night’s activities, the caregiver reasoned that her husband had risen from bed while she slept, gone to the kitchen to make something to eat, turned on the gas stove and left it unattended. The Alzheimer’s dog had gone into action as trained to do, and had alerted her to the danger. Because it took longer than usual for the caregiver to transfer into her wheelchair from her bed, the flames were dangerously high by the time she made it to the kitchen. The caregiver and trainer were deeply grateful when they realized what could have been. CHAPTER 7. Uniqueness of Alzheimer’s Dogs Alzheimer’s dogs have to be self-starting dogs, like trained hearing and seizure dogs. They all respond to sounds in their environment, going into action without the aid of human voices commanding them to do something. They tell themselves. However, in the process of training Alzheimer’s dogs I discovered Alzheimer’s dogs’ pattern has the same steps to completion as seizure dogs’. Both types of dogs have to confirm that their sound has really occurred before they alert their caregivers. But while hearing dogs hear and identify the sounds that they are trained to work, they do not have to verify the sound source before alerting their masters. 1. They have to be Self-Starting Dogs Hearing, seizure, and Alzheimer’s dogs are different from guide dogs for the blind and service dogs because they have to know when to go to work without the aid of a human command. The hearing, seizure, and Alzheimer’s dogs must learn to be self-starting dogs. Guide dogs for the blind, and service dogs, respond to human voice commands. A person gives the dog a verbal (voice) command and the dog responds appropriately, as it was trained to do. The hearing, seizure and Alzheimer’s dogs must initiate their own responses to environmental stimuli, not to a person’s voice. Hearing, seizure, and Alzheimer’s dogs are trained to identify and automatically react to their sounds by self-starting. All three types of assistance dogs are self-starters. 2. They have to learn the Alzheimer’s Dog Work Pattern An Alzheimer’s dog is taught to recognize the sound of the patient getting up and their feet hitting the floor (an “imminent wandering” situation). When the dog hears this sound occurring, it identifies it as the sound that they are to work. They self-start and immediately go to the patient to confirm that the patient really is up and on the move, as opposed to just turned over in bed. Next the dog will go to the chief caregiver and get their attention by physically touching him or her. The dog then leads the caregiver to the whereabouts of the patient, going into a “sit-stay” in front of the patient, acting as a distraction. The Alzheimer’s dog, like the hearing and seizure dogs, is trained to work 24/7, continuously watching over its patient.
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About the Book
CAREGIVER FOLLOW ME is a unique book for chief caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients living at home. Patti has heard the caregivers’ pleas for help and has done something about it. “Caregivers need help and that help can come in the form of a specially trained dog; an Alzheimer’s dog that the caregiver can train themselves.” Patti knows her subject from twenty-five years of hands-on-experience and generously gives her knowledge in language a lay person can understand. For clarification she uses photographs, illustrations, stories, and diagrams. The dog’s explicit job is “wander control” and Patti’s humane training methods have been proven to work. All of the training techniques that Patti developed for the Alzheimer’s dogs are available to you. She knows that caregivers will experience pure joy as they journey with her in creating an Alzheimer’s dog that becomes their partner in the confrontation against dementia. Together they can keep their loved one at home where they can provide maximum care with less stress. Using Patti’s personal knowledge of her subject matter you will craft a working partnership with your dog that gives you peace of mind and offers a myriad of therapeutic benefits for your patient, yourself, and your entire family. Wouldn’t it be nice to get a good night’s sleep knowing that your dog is affectionately watching over your loved one listening for, hearing, and recognizing a potential wandering situation? There would be no more, “What did I hear? Is she up? Should I get up again and check?” Your dog will handle this for you and be absolutely delighted to perform its job. The only wage that your dog asks for is your acknowledgement that it has done its job, has pleased you, and will get oodles of your love. Primary to your success is establishing the idea that each training session, from the dog’s viewpoint, is a game it can play with you for its entire life. You will be teaching your dog nine steps that, once put together, will be known as the pattern, which the dog will execute in order to successfully complete its work task. These nine steps are taught from within five different environments; each one getting progressively more challenging for the dog. This way you can efficiently teach the dog what it must learn to become an Alzheimer’s dog. Learn its language and listen to its voice--your dog is already reading you. Take pride in yourself and your dog. Teach your dog to hear for you.
About the Author
Patti Putnam has her BS degree in sociology with past employment as a psychiatric social worker and judicial probation officer. She has subsequent degrees in basic/advanced dog obedience training as well as specialized hearing dog training. She started a non-profit assistance dog provider program, was head trainer and executive director for 25 years, where she was personally involved in all facets of the program from selection, training, placement and follow through, of hearing, seizure, and Alzheimer’s assistance dogs. Her program was seen in numerous news media including Prime Time Live and Newsweek magazine and won Delta Society’s 1991 hearing dog of the year award. She was elected to Assistance Dogs International’s Board of Directors. She personally created the prototype Alzheimer’s assistance dog as well as those working Alzheimer’s dog teams that followed. Due to lack of funds the program was terminated in 2011 but inquiries for her dogs keep coming. The need for Alzheimer’s dogs continues to grow. No other provider program is training Alzheimer’s dogs to complete the exact job that Patti’s dogs do, therefore, there is no place to refer people to. Additionally, she realizes that once she is no longer available, without written record of how she taught the dogs, this pertinent data will vanish. Because of these factors Patti’s solution--to write a how to train an Alzheimer’s dog book, CAREGIVER FOLLOW ME,--simultaneously, preserves her training methods and keeps the Alzheimer’s dog viable. Chief caregivers can successfully train their own Alzheimer’s dogs in their own homes while safeguarding Patti’s methods for future generations to capitalize upon.