Desensitization is very important for your prospective Service dog. Without this important step you might find yourself in a situation you did not prepare or train for and the reaction of your service dog may not be positive. Its true that it is almost impossible to train for every situation you might encounter, but if the proper socialization and desensitization has been done in the past it will make your Service dog more confident and adaptable to new situations.

I wanted to create this list to help people create a good foundation in their Service dogs. The list contains not only sounds you want to desensitize too, but also physical stimuli (Sights and smells). Remember that when desensitizing your dog that you want to give your dog as much of the experience as possible. For example when desensitizing to fireworks, not only do you want to work with your dog on the sounds produced but you also want your dog to experience the visual part of the bright flashing lights and the smell of the cinder and smoke. Otherwise your dog may have no reaction to the sound but might startle at the light effects of the fire works. You will want to be able to get as close to these things as you possibly can for proper desensitization. I realize that sometimes its not always possible to be able to get out to a place where you can expose your dog to these things. In this case use of recorded sounds is an acceptable substitute.

When using recorded sound it is best listened too through a stereo system or surround sound system. Remember though that recorded sound is always a little bit distorted.

Here is a link to a site that has prerecorded sounds for you to use.

If you think of anything that is not on this list please do not hesitate to email me with the information.