Are autism service dogs smart?
by Beth
A story in last Sunday’s New York Times ponders whether service dogs help humans because they are smart, or simply because the rigorous training they go through makes them want to please the person on the other end of the leash.
The matter of what exactly goes on in the mind of a dog is a tricky one, and until recently much of the research on canine intelligence has been met with large doses of skepticism. But over the last several years a growing body of evidence, culled from small scientific studies of dogs’ abilities to do things like detect cancer or seizures, solve complex problems (complex for a dog, anyway), and learn language suggests that they may know more than we thought they did.
At the risk of sounding unsophisticated, I have to ask: who cares why our service dogs help us? I’m just grateful they do! And I’m sure Michelle O’Neil, the author of a blog at Bark Magazine, feels the same way. O’Neil’s daughter Riley has autism, and the Bark blog follows the two of them as they train with Jingle, Riley’s new autism service dog.
Day 3: Today we got into the meaty stuff. Behavior disruption! This is the whole point of having a service dog for Riley, to help her with the meltdowns. Eventually, hopefully, Jingle will be able to redirect Riley before the escalation occurs. Today, a 4 Paws staff member indicated she would be role-playing a child crying (which sent Riley running from the room covering her ears before the scene even unfolded). The dogs are taught to nuzzle, to put their head in the child’s lap, or to go “over,” which means putting their whole body across the child’s lap for deep pressure.
Watch Riley meeting Jingle on YouTube and tell me if you think Jingle does her work because she’s smart, or because she’s obedient. And … do you think it matters?