Autism Service Dogs

One of the challenges of having a service dog, and with dog training in general, is that you can never be absolutely certain how your dog will respond to something new until it happens. You can make educated guesses based on temperament and past experience, but you can't really be sure.

Recently, it occurred to me that I had no real idea how Glindy would behave at the dentist's office. While she has solid public access behavior, I wasn't sure that I could trust her to hold a stay while a burly dentist was shoving a whining drill the size of a jack-hammer into my molars. :)

It would have been a bad idea to make a filling or other high-stakes appointment our first test, so I decided to take Glindy for my next routine cleaning instead. I figured that the worst that could happen would be an access challenge, or even an interrupted cleaning if Glindy couldn't behave herself. Either of these negative outcomes would be a lot less troublesome than not being seen while suffering from a toothache, or having to leave with a cavity half-filled.

When we got to the dentist's office, Glindy knew we were doing something different and started giving off the high-pitched excitement whine she's prone to using in new situations. I find it annoying when she does that, but all the ladies at the dental office wanted to say hi to the dog, pet her, and reassure her that everything was all right. Clearly, her whining triggers something maternal in most women, and they find it irresistible. I, on the other hand, just worry that other people might find it disruptive—but clearly I'm in the minority, so I just grind my teeth quietly when it happens.

Anyway, despite the initial whining (which always passes quickly) nobody gave me a hard time. In fact, curiosity and excitement seemed to be the order of the day.

My hygienist did ask some nosey personal questions, though, when I mentioned that I was training the dog for myself and not for someone else. This isn't uncommon; many people assume I'm a professional dog trainer or working for a service dog program when they see her marked "in training." They usually make some comment about how hard it must be to give up the dog after training them, at which point I'll usually let them know that I'm training the dog for myself. Many folks (including the hygienist) often respond to that by saying that I "don't seem autistic," which is hard to interpret (is it an insult, or a compliment?) since I have no idea what they think autism looks like.

Anyway, I wasn't really offended by her questions or reactions. I'm pretty "out" about having Asperger's Syndrome, so I don't really mind those sorts of questions as long as it isn't in an access-denial context.

Next, we went into the exam area where I found that there was no place to tie Glindy up. I ended up putting her in a down-stay in the corner of the room and just dropped the leash beside her. She only broke her stay once during the entire cleaning, and a rinse-spit-stay! were all that was needed to finish out the appointment smoothly.

Even though I wasn't sure what to expect from Glindy, and had never even mentioned either the dog or my disability to the dentist before, I'd say the visit was a success. I still wouldn't want Glindy roaming around—and perhaps joggling someone's elbow— if I had a diamond drill in my mouth, but things definitely went better than I expected.

Overall, I rate Glindy at 9/10 for service-dogness, with a point off for whining. The dental office gets 8/10, with points off for petting without permission. I, of course, get 10/10 for having clean teeth and the foresight to set up the whole chain of events. *grin*