Last time I talked about Cesar Millan’s recent “Junior gets his Service Dog certification!” post, how it was so wrong, and said I’d point out specifically what the major problems were in my next few posts. As mentioned, the page has been taken down, but you can read a cached version here, and you can click on the photo for a larger screen capture image of the article as well.

Let’s start with what’s probably the biggest one because it drives so many things in the service dog world – priorities.  I’m constantly reminding people that, if you’re gonna be involved with service dogs, you absolutely have to be clear on the priorities. Because it’s very easy to get caught up in the feelgood factors, especially when you add veterans to the mix, and lose sight of what you are trying to accomplish.

As I said, when possible, I’m going to reference things I’ve already written since most, if not all, still apply and this situation presents a great opportunity to bring those up again and reinforce them.

I’ve talked about this as recently as six weeks ago in “Pit Bulls As Service Dogs? Why?“:

Again, there’s nothing that says you can’t do that, BUT it’s like everything else with a service dog, and that’s really the point I want to make here.  The focus has to be on making a life-changing, lifelong improvement for the person receiving the dog, and everything – EVERYTHING – has to be evaluated in that light. And the question you have to ask yourself or an organization is “What’s the priority here?”  Is it rescuing pit bulls, or a crusade to prove they aren’t bad dogs, or (fill in the blank), OR making that truly life-changing improvement in someone’s life?

And the answer is not “both”.  It’s like that old thing about how “you only get one thing in the box – what’s it gonna be?”

I also addressed it as part of a larger discussion (“Tough Questions You Need To Ask About Every Service Dog for Veterans Organization“) back in April 2009:

●  What is the real focus of the organization? Are they truly focused on “the human end of the leash”?

Service dog programs now often have a number of individual elements they promote, sometimes all combined into one program – for example, prisoners raising dogs (one element) rescued from shelters (another element) that will become service dogs (another element) for wounded veterans (another element).  On the upside, each one of those is a great thing by itself, and, naturally, in combination, it comes across as even that much better.  On the downside, though, those things can easily be competing priorities, and the organization – and you – have to figure out what’s the primary focus.

Are they more interested in rescuing dogs from shelters?  Or is the real priority helping prisoners?  Or is their true passion helping wounded veterans? Harsh as this may sound, the bottom line is the focus has to be on making a life-changing, lifelong improvement for the person receiving the dog, and those other interests are side benefits that are important only to the degree that they help make that happen.  Again, look closely, but sometimes I think this one jumps out at you.

Take a look at that picture of Cesar and Junior, read the accompanying article, and you tell me – what’s the priority here?  I don’t think it’s too tough to figure that out, especially if you know anything about Cesar’s history, but you can go read the Millan Foundation mission statement just to confirm it:

“To create and deliver community humane education programs and promote animal welfare by supporting the rescue, rehabilitation, and rehoming of abused and abandoned dogs.”

Nothing wrong with that at all and a great goal in an of itself, but doesn’t play (or is, at best, secondary) when you’re talking about service dogs.

Next: Part 3 – The Law