Teamwork II: A Dog Training Manual for People with Disabilities [Spiral-bound]

Stewart Nordensson (Author), Lydia Kelley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2010

TEAMWORK II is a dog training manual written for people with disabilities to be able to train their own dogs to assist them in their daily lives. TEAMWORK I teaches basic obedience & canine behavior. This edition of TEAMWORK II which as been revised and expanded, teaches the service exercises, such as retrieving dropped objects, turning on lights, pulling a wheelchair, etc. Both TEAMWORK I and TEAMWORK II contain lots of color photographs and personal anecdotes along with the step-by-step instructions written in a clear and simple-to-understand format.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Lydia Kelly has been a professional trainer for 25+ years. She is the Training Director for TOP DOG, a non-profit service dog program that teaches disabled individuals how to train their own service dogs. Stewart Nordensson (1937-1999) was severely handicapped with cerebral palsy but still trained over 50 service dogs throughout his life and became expert at obedience training and canine behavior.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Dogs are as individual as people. If you found your dog intelligent and eager to learn during basic obedience lessons you still need to consider some factors before trying to train him to be a service dog. Willingness is an important consideration, but you must also think about what you'll be asking him to do. Some tasks you might ask him to perform include picking up large objects, pulling or pushing your wheelchair, bracing to help you up or down and opening doors. These exercises all require a medium to large, fairly strong dog. It would be difficult for a chihuahua or a miniature poodle to help you up or pick up heavy items for you.

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 154 pages
• Publisher: Top Dog Publications; Revised & Expanded 2010 edition (July 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965621618
• ISBN-13: 978-0965621618
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #177,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Service Dog Training Book & Precious Resource!, March 4, 2006

By 

Susan Elizabeth Anderson "Exotic Glimmerings" (Garland, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Teamwork II: A Dog Training Manual for People with Disabilities (Spiral-bound)

Teamwork II is a great book for training your own service dog. In fact, this book and it's predecessor are the only ones I have found on this topic. Using today's progressive positive reinforcement (operant conditioning) techniques to train dogs, this book is a priceless resource for those that can't use typical training methods to train their dog and need their dog to do more than typical sit, stay, and down. For those of us that can't run backward to teach our dog to come and need a dog that can dependably complete more complex tasks, such as bringing the phone, helping to get dressed and undressed, or providing support and preventing a fall, this book is the answer!

This book is actually written using the real experiences of other people that have self-trained their own assistance dogs and provides their techniques and solutions to training the various behaviors. It is based completely on real-world experiences and exercises, which makes it not only very understandable and broken down well but also gives it the credibility of being tried and true solutions to problems encountered by those of us that have various physical disabilities.

Teamwork II can be used without reading Teamwork I and as a stand alone; however, it only covers the actual assistance behaviors. The groudwork and basic training needed before reaching this level is covered fully in the first volume. While it would be helpful if there were more books dedicated to this subject, of not only training service dogs but geared toward the self-training of service dogs, this book definitely meets and exceeds that need!

I would recommend this book as a must read to those that are disabled and self-training their own service dog as well as to those interested in training service dogs and/or already training them. I think this book also will give those people devoted to the training of service dogs invaluable insite into the needs of the people they are trying to help, as well as a good perspective of the wide range of disabilities and their limitations that the dogs will need to be responding to and helping to mitigate. With the ever expanding need for service dogs and the constant and growing gap of meeting that need, more and more people will be needing to train their own and are rising to that task, and this book is a necessary and vital tool for meeting that need.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Team Work 2, November 4, 2006

By 

Jelly Belly "We Team" (Milwaukee, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Teamwork II: A Dog Training Manual for People with Disabilities (Spiral-bound)

While I was visiting my local library the libraian happened to mention this book to me, noticing that my siezure alert dog is fairly young. He turned 2 at the end of May 2006 and is sometimes resistant to comands in public such as :"relax" or "down" which means lay down on the floor and wait quietly. So It ended up that I couldn't get the book from the library because it was more like a text book, I tried to get it from a local Barne's and Nobles but was told they couldn't guarantee delivery, so I turned to Amazon.com.

I recieved the book in about a week and have been working with it, and my dog. It has helped us overcome training snafus such as backing up under a restraunt table because it is "unnatural" for dogs to back in, and unusual for them to have the room to go in forward and turn around. "Tuck" your tail has also been a useful command helping me teach my dog to be safe in the car when closing the door, or at checkout lanes in the grocery store.

The book has also been helpful in educating the public including some medical professionals who had not been aware of "alternative therapies" such as the use of a service dog. This combined with the laws of the ADA found on the dept of justice website, helped me feel more confident in facing other's adversity towards my dog and me working as a team.

My dog has been instrumental in allowing me to do things without worrying i'm going to have a siezure, or fall out. The book Team work 2 has cemented things I already knew about training but offered other examples of how other teams overcame their training roadblocks.

It is fair to say you must most often start training your dog for these purposes at a young age to have the most positive effect on the outcome.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well Written, March 22, 2009

By 

C. Doerr "groomer elite" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Teamwork II: A Dog Training Manual for People with Disabilities (Spiral-bound)

I am training a sheltie puppy to be a service dog for my daughter and with 35 professional years in dogs I want to buy the best book available to help me achieve this task. Teamwork 2 does go back to the original book often, Teamwork, but the information in the book is solid, easy to understand and easier yet to apply to training a calm, focused dog to do effective service work. Thank you Stewart Nordensson and Lydia Kelley.