Comprehensive Pet Therapy

Meet Orpheus! CPT selected Orpheus as the #1 pick from amongst a litter of 8 well-bred puppies. Starting from 8 weeks of age, Orpheus began training as an autism and psychiatric service dog. During the initial stage of his training, Orpheus lives with CPT Trainer Claire Simms.

Orpheus’s future home contains 6 cats. Therefore, when designing his puppy board train program, CPT felt it was important to acquaint Orpheus with felines. CPT selected Claire as Orpheus’s trainer due to her joy working with puppies and because Claire owns 2 cats.

Claire works daily on Orpheus’s housebreaking, household manners, basic obedience, and socialization. CPT’s puppy socialization program productively exposes Orpheus to people, dogs, cats, and multiple indoor and outdoor environments. Before Orpheus was even 10 weeks old, Claire took Orpheus to CVS, UPS, and Marshalls. While there, Orpheus acclimated to shopping carts, new sounds, new floor surfaces, and unique smells. His confident performance conspicuously confirms the accuracy of CPT’s litter evaluation.

During his board train, Claire makes every moment a teaching moment. This includes educating Orpheus to chew only appropriate chew toys, signal when he needs to go to the bathroom, come when called, sit when asked, and interact appropriately with cats.

The puppy stage of the CPT Service Dog Program creates a solid foundation that CPT builds upon during future training. Most importantly, CPT desires well-mannered, confident, happy puppies who enjoy training, interacting, and cooperating. Although Orpheus is only in the beginning stages of his service dog career, he has progressed quickly.

Saint is a new Labrador Retriever enrollee in CPT's Canine Companions for Independence Puppy Raiser Class. In addition to operating its own nationally recognized service dog program, for the past 20+ years CPT has administered puppy raiser training for the Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) Atlanta Chapter. CCI is the nation's largest nonprofit service dog entity.

We look forward to working with Saint as he matures from the Puppy Raiser Class into adult service dog training.

Meet Clover, a service dog-in-training.

Clover was diligently selected by CPT Head Trainer Mark Spivak, using CPT's scientifically supported litter evaluation process. CPT's proprietary litter evaluation protocol has demonstrated a very high rate of longitudinal accuracy. The evaluation protocol assesses temperament, aptitude, structure, health, affiliation, social confidence, environmental confidence, proprioceptive confidence, acceptance of tactile contact, and several other variables pertinent to stellar service dog performance.

Once Clover reached 8 weeks of age, whereby he was old enough for removal from his litter, he began a board train at the home of CPT Trainer Claire Sims. During Clover's 1st Stage Board Train, Claire focused on educating Clover on housebreaking, household manners, interspecies socialization (human, cat), intraspecies socialization, environmental socialization, proprioceptive confidence and competence, imprint obedience, and basic obedience. Clover's training included time inside and outside Claire's residence and road trips to grocery stores, coffee shops, and other relevant public access venues.

Yet, from Clover's perspective, the highlight of his board train was socializing and playing with Claire's cats.

By living with a CPT Trainer, Clover progressed quickly, whereupon he was prepared for immersion in the owner's home. Furthermore, Clover is prepared to commence his 2nd Stage of training, during which the owner and CPT will expose Clover to more environments and higher levels of obedience. Obedience provides the foundation for proficient service dog work.

When Clover is 14 - 16 months of age, he will commence his 3rd Stage of Training, where CPT will focus on teaching him a customized suite of service dog task behaviors that best improves the owner's quality of life.

After his time with Claire, Clover is already a well-behaved, confident dog and a wonderful companion. Most importantly, he has a solid foundation to become an amazing service animal.

Meet Mattie! Mattie is a 1-year-old, female Sheepadoodle who prior to her board train exhibited excited barking behavior when viewing a person or dog, poor leash walking skills, and unreliable basic obedience, especially amidst distractions. Her owners wish Mattie to calmly and responsibly accompany them to outdoor venues, including restaurants, when they visit their second home in St. George Island, Florida.

To accomplish their objectives they selected a CPT board train solution.

Mattie started a bit distractible and recalcitrant — but after 2 focused weeks living with professional CPT Trainer Claire Sims, Mattie made incredible progress! Moreover, she enjoys learning and her camaraderie with Claire.

She’s now mastered reliable and responsive obedience, a rapid recall, proper leash manners, and maintaining tranquility and focus, even around distractions. We’re so proud of Mattie's transformation!

Most importantly, Mattie's owners can now experience more enjoyment from Mattie's inclusion in their family. And Mattie now experiences a higher quality of life, because she is calmer, more confident, and her owners can take her everywhere trusting Mattie will be pleasant company.

The video below shows Mattie completing a public down-stay near an outdoor festival that included a live band. The still photos display a public sit-stay in Avalon, a head shot, and Mattie's figurative wings she sprouted during her board train- wings that allow Maggie to fly through a healthier and happier life.

A new article on the CPT website. Enjoy!

How to Stop Inappropriate Dog Chewing Behavior - CPT Understanding inappropriate chewing and implementing effective solutions is crucial for both canine welfare and household harmony.

CPT Advanced Obedience students Lily and Ponce at their first Happy Tails assignment. Lily and Ponce, along with their Happy Tails team, visited Kennesaw State University. Canine companionship provides students a productive stress relief during mid-term exams.

Administrative Assistant (Part-Time)


Comprehensive Pet Therapy, Inc.
6600 Roswell Road
Suite K-2
Sandy Springs, GA 30328

Responsibilities include:
• Responding to incoming phone calls,
• Managing client and payment database,
• Scheduling and maintaining training staff appointments and availability,
• Miscellaneous projects assigned by management, and
• Assisting in keeping the facility clean and presentable.

The ideal person should have excellent verbal and written communication skills; enjoy interacting with people over the phone; have the ability to work independent of immediate supervision; have the ability to work both alongside colleagues and alone; and be willing to obtain familiarity with company services, prices, and policies. Some dog training knowledge would be beneficial. The position is three days per week.

Benefits:

Able to bring dog to work and employee discount.

Interested parties should email a cover letter and resume to [email protected].

Miro Learning the Competition About Turn

In this session, we focused on building precision on Miro’s competition about turn. Goals were to keep him more proximal to the handler, more attentive, and more reliably in heel position as he navigated the 180° movement.

To begin building the exercise, we break it into component steps. Thus, we abbreviate the turn, while rewarding Miro when he meets goals with the shorter movement. We then add one step at a time until Miro can reliably, confidently, and capably perform the entire 180° turn with perfect precision. In this series, we also challenged Miro with distractions by challenging him to perform in both an indoor and an outdoor environment.

Miro Learning the Stand for Examination Miro, a 1.5-year old, male Rottweiler is training for AKC competition obedience. One of the Novice-level exercises is the Stand for Examination. The exercise consists of multiple chained behaviors: 1) a sit-stay, the starting position for the exercise; 2) a pop-up stand, where the dog progresses from a seated to a standing position; 3) a stand-stay, where the dog remains absolutely stationary in a standing position while the handler departs; 4) acceptance of a manual examination, constituting human tactile contact along the dog’s upper and medial vertebrae; and 5) a stand-stay while the handler moves around the rear of the dog, until ultimately returning to heel position. Miro has an excellent short-duration sit-stay and has already learned the pop-up stand, although he needs to improve his speed and reduce his forward movement when elevating from a sit to a stand. Nevertheless, in today’s session we are emphasizing skills 3, 4, and 5. In the first video we work on skills 3 and 5. Miro previously had a problem where he would move his feet as the trainer circled him. However, as demonstrated in the video, with practice, Miro has learned to maintain a completely stationary position to earn a release. His reward is a combination of effervescent praise and the opportunity to run, which Miro greatly enjoys. Miro relishes food and toys, but fortunately also works enthusiastically for praise and human-dog interaction. Since Miro demonstrated requisite competence on skills 1, 2, 3, and 5, our objectives converted to improving his comportment during skill 4, the examination. In the second video, upon the initial examination Miro moves his rear feet. Rather than using a verbal or physical correction, trainer Mark Spivak elects to ignore Miro’s error. Instead, Mark repeats the command, then rewards and releases Miro when he executes properly. Miro tends to improve quickly with a program emphasizing successful trials and de-emphasizing failures, whereby Miro accurately processes the lack of reward as information and then properly amends his performance. In the third video, Miro moves slightly after the pop-up, but does not move after the stay command. In AKC obedience there is no deduction for movement until after the handler communicates stay and/or leaves heel position. Upon the examination, this time Miro is flawless, whereby Mark elects to simplify the exercise by returning directly to heel position and providing prompt praise, rather than returning around Miro and delaying praise. In the 4th video, Mark completes the same operation with Miro, where he emphasizes the examination component of the exercise by leaving out step 5. Hindsight shows Mark made the correct decision. Miro adapted nicely from the prior trial. In this trial, Miro was flawless throughout steps 1 – 4, whereupon he earns immediate praise and a release. During Miro’s next training session, we will focus on the pop-up and on Miro remaining stationary during skill 5. Yet, by separating skill 5 from skill 4 in today’s session we could more effectively teach Miro to remain stationary during the examination portion of the exercise. Moreover, Miro learns quickly from success. Therefore, an unchaining strategy that simplifies each component step accelerates Miro’s understanding, confidence, cooperation, and competence. And we don’t risk the potential stress and loss of motivation that may occur with a program that unduly punishes Miro’s failures. The proof is in the videos, as they document a wonderful attitude and notable improvement. If you want your dog to obtain obedience skills to the highest level, regardless of whether your goals are for him or her to become an outstanding pet or a victorious competition dog, we welcome you to contact CPT by phone (404-236-2150) or email ([email protected]). www.cpt-training.com