Dog Training: The Effectiveness of Various Training Methods on Service Dogs

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective is to determine which cue among the spoken word, signed word, written word or visual picture produces the most efficient method of training a service dog to respond to a person with disabilities when that person gives a command to have an object retrieved. Methods/Materials Method - using the following subjects/materials in a controlled setting to gauge response effectiveness. Materials - 1) Four different dogs were used (3 Labrador Retrievers/1 Golden Retriever) 2) Three different pictures were used (key, hat, shoe - enlarged on white paper) 3) Three different written words were used (eyeglasses, book, towel -enlarged on white paper) 4)Twelve different objects were used (keys, hat, shoe, eyeglasses, book, towel, newspaper, Rx bottle, wallet, leash, food dish, socks) Results The dogs (test subjects) reacted best to the most simple/least distracting methods of training; the spoken word and the signed word. Nevertheless, the dogs were also able to learn the commands through the cues of the written words and pictures (with a steeper learning curve than training with the spoken word and signed word). Conclusions/Discussion When training service dogs with spoken words, signed words, written words or visual pictures, spoken words and signed words were the methods to which all subject dogs best responded; however, the subject dogs were able to learn all four methods.

Competition history

• CSEF 2013 Mammalian Biology · Entry J1220

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Animal Sciences projects
• CSEF Animal Sciences projects
• Every CSEF 2013 project