Dachshund Certified Therapy Dog

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If you follow along with my adventures on Facebook, then you probably already heard that on Sunday I became a Certified Therapy Dog! Yippee!

ammo the dachshund takes his cgc and tdi tests

For the past 6 weeks I have been taking classes at the Dog Training Center of Chester County to prepare to take my Canine Good Citizen and Therapy Dog International tests. One of my goals this year was to pass both tests and my Mom was super happy when I did so on my very first try!

As you can see in my testing video I was SUPER excited to be performing. What can I say, I’m just an overly happy guy! I may have forgotten a bit of my heeling a few times, but I was just so pumped to be meeting new people.

ludwigs corner horse show

One of the hardest parts of the Therapy Dog test is to walk past a pile of cookies and not eat them! Do you know how hard that is when your nose is 2″ off the ground!? I was very tempted to eat those cookies when I walked by them in the beginning of my test, but when my Mom said leave it I happily obliged and didn’t eat a single one. (Phew, close call, because mom said I would have failed had I eaten one).

ammo the dachshund valentines day treats

Even though I’ve passed my tests, my training will never be done. Mom and I continue to take agility classes and I know I’ll never stop learning and improving. I’m excited to see what comes next for me – I just hope that for any future tests they let me wear my Super Hero Cape – because we all know I look WAY cooler with my cape on!

ammo the dachshund super hero

If you would like to check out all the requirements to pass a CGC and TDI test, you can check it out here.

P.S. Thanks to all my pals on my Facebook page who congratulated me on passing my tests, you guys totally make me blush!

 

19 thoughts on “Dachshund Certified Therapy Dog”

  1. Congratulations Ammo! I knew you could pass on your first try. You are just that kind of special little dog.

  4. This is such a cute website, especially because my Barney is a dachshund, and I was trying to learn if he could possibly become a certified therapy dog. Hm. I am afraid he wouldn’t pass the “cookie” test… :-/ Barney is a rescued dog, I wonder if that would also be a problem to get him certified.

    Anyway, nice meeting Ammo!

    • I don’t think there is any discrimination for rescue dogs – just so long as you can pass all the tests! Gotta be a friendly, happy, obedient dog!

      • I have 5months old dachshund and I wanna train him to be a therapy dog too. However, he is not friendly and he barks when nervous. I take him to dog parks and walks to introduce new things but he doesn’t like it. He gets intimidated by any dogs that are bigger than him. Also don’t like people. I don’t know what to do. My trainer said to continue taking him out but don’t get near too many dogs or people because he is not used to it. At this rate, I don’t know if he’ll ever be friendly to strangers and other dogs. Was your Ammo friendly from the beginning?

        • My situation was unique in that since my mom owns a retail business- from 8 weeks on I got to go to work and was exposed to new people every single day. This early exposure made me extremely people friendly. On weekends my parents took me on adventures to public places where I’d see dogs & lots of new things. I didn’t frequent dog parks though because it’s not really the best place to build confidence in a young dog. It’s better to attend a controlled training class to meet dogs or to view them from afar without the pressure that I had to meet anyone. After years of this and training classes I became the first well adjusted and friendly dog I am today. Every dog is different, but I might suggest finding a training class you can attend with your dog and continue to take him places (maybe not the dog park) but don’t force interactions if your dog is nervous or not ready. You want him to be confident not scared. Best of luck!

  5. I am so proud of you Ammo, you give all of us future dachshund owners faith in knowing you can be trained. You remind me of my Skippy who is in doggie heaven now. You look like twins.

  6. Ammo, what took you the longest to learn? I am trainning Molly my dashchund tobe atheraphy dog tohelp me with my disease. She is smart and learns fast but she is stuburn at times anddoes not want to do. Any suggestions for Molly. She learns after first try. Where did you get your vest? I hope we can keep in touch. I would like to send you a picture of me Molly.

  7. Ammo,

    I am proud of you. I have a miniature dog that looks like you that will be 7 months old in a few days. His name is Ruger. I really like your name Ammo too. My husband was 58 and passed away. He loved guns so I named my dog that was born 5 days before he passed away,Ruger. My mother and sisters bought him for my so he is pretty special to me just like you are special. I wanted to find out how to make Ruger a Service Dog and came across this site and could not resist writing a note to Ammo and his owner. Do you have any ideas on how I can train Ruger to become a Service Dog? Any help will be appreciated.

    Thanks,

    Carol

    • So sorry to hear about your husband, Ruger is a great name though! Being a service dog is very different than a therapy dog. Unfortunately I don’t know much about service dog training but I thought there might be organizations that help you train your own dog to be a service dog. You would just have to do a search. Good luck!

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