How Woman Taught Service Dog to Help Push Husband in Wheelchair—’Patience’
Adog owner who spent the last year working with her husband’s service dog to perform a special command has learned how incredibly frustrating, yet rewarding, training a dog can be.
Megan Gentry and her husband Tyson decided to bring home a Doberman pinscher puppy, Bailey, who was eager to please, didn’t scare easily and didn’t immediately give affection—useful traits they would need to train her as a service dog for Tyson.
Tyson suffered a spinal cord injury playing football at Ohio State University during his sophomore year. He is a C-4 quadriplegic, with no hand, wrist or tricep function and no trunk control. For the last 18 years, he never had a service dog, Gentry told Newsweek via email.
But since Tyson is allergic to Labradors, other retrievers and any fine-haired dog, the pickings for service dog trainers were slim. Instead, they decided to train Bailey themselves.
Gentry explained that her two requirements for their service dog were to help pick things up for Tyson and to be able to push him up, as he cannot get himself back up if he leans too far forward.
She started training Bailey to perform the “push” task last year. Her March 6 Instagram on the account @megangentry19 shows Bailey’s progression with the command. The clip gives viewers a peek into the “work, persistence, patience, and time” needed to train a dog.
Screenshots from a March 6 Instagram video of a service dog’s progression to learning how to “push.” The training was designed to help the dog’s owner sit up in the wheelchair if he leans over…
Gentry started by having Bailey learn to get under a pillow, pushing it up with her body as she leaned against it. They progressed to a pillow in the wheelchair, mimicking the same pushing movement. Then Gentry leaned herself over in the chair instead of the pillow, asking Bailey to again push up with her body before having the dog do it with Tyson.
“There was a point about 1.5-2 months before she finally got the entire task to completion that I almost gave up,” Gentry said. “I saw our trainer and told him that I thought I was going to give up on teaching her to push Ty up because I didn’t think Bailey was big enough or strong enough to do it.”
Trainer Scot Rucker of Rucker Dog Training helped guide her through the process, encouraging her to keep going. Like any training, it doesn’t happen overnight. The key is consistency.
Gentry said she used Bailey’s mealtimes as training times. Bailey ate three times a day, every day as a puppy. All three of those times were spent training with food incentives.
Trouble popped up when Gentry discovered that for Bailey to get the right leverage, she needed to get her back feet on Tyson’s footrest, and because dogs don’t like their paws unstable, it took Gentry five months to get Bailey comfortable.
Her video gives viewers a glimpse into the realities of training a service dog. And despite wanting to throw in the towel, Gentry continued, knowing how much Bailey could help.
“Having Bailey here and able to help him has given me so much relief and given him some more independence,” Gentry said. “Before Bailey, if he dropped something on the ground, he would have to leave it there until I was able to pick it up for him. Now, he just calls Bailey and she can be his hands.”
Bailey has learned other commands that help Tyson, including cleaning up, closing the door, hitting handicapped buttons, turning his wheelchair around and going under tables when needed.
However, Tyson’s favorite command is “bring.” Tyson will say this word if he drops something and Bailey will come, pick it up with her mouth, then set it on his lap. He can use this while at the store and in need of help getting items off the shelf. Bailey can even differentiate who to bring an item to, and even “off duty,” she’ll still come around to pick something up that hit the floor.
“Dog training is incredibly rewarding but it can also be incredibly frustrating,” Gentry said. “I am a very type-A person and like to get things completed and done. Dog training doesn’t work like that, it takes time and patience and you can’t rush the dog or it will take even longer.”
