Tagert was trained at Sheppy's Disability Dogs inc. They were established in 1985. Sheppy's is one of the first providers of these kinds of dogs. There are over ten organizations that now work with seizures alert dogs.
Sheppy's first realized that dogs could be trained for this was when Their own pet dogs started reacting to their children's seizures. They thought if ours could, why not other dogs as well and we could train them to be out in public and help others with Epilepsy.
Well in 1998 they did just that. Each dog receives over two hundred hours of training. The dogs go through a lot of testing before they are even chosen as a Sheppy's dog. They look for a certain characteristics first. If a dog has any aggressive trait, has a temper or is shy they do not make a good service dog. They must not be afraid or run and hide from people or loud noises. They must be friendly and have a big sense of curiosity. The dogs must be able to socialize well with people and other dogs.
This is a long and hard process and takes a lot of work. The dogs that seem to make the best service dogs are Labrador retrievers. Now all kinds of dogs are used although there are some breeds that they do tend to stay away from. Those dogs that do not make it go back to the breeder With an explanation as to why they were not chosen. Now for those that do make it let's go on shall we.
Those dogs that do pass the first amount of testing go on to be trained. The training takes six to seven months. Although some have been held longer.
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