{"id":8307,"date":"2012-11-16T14:53:49","date_gmt":"2012-11-16T19:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=8307"},"modified":"2012-11-20T13:00:36","modified_gmt":"2012-11-20T18:00:36","slug":"meet-sawyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2012\/11\/16\/meet-sawyer\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Sawyer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Sawyer is learning how to become a service dog (photo by Whitney Vickers).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sawyer is a 5-year-old standard poodle with a job to do.<\/p>\n

He can carry up to 20 pounds on his back and is learning how to help people down the stairs and open doors.<\/p>\n

Dr. Carolyn Worthen, director of the Vet Tech program, has recently started training him as a service dog and said both he and she are learning together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done a lot of training and a lot of behavior work in my past,\u201d Worthen said. \u201cBut I\u2019ve never had to train a dog to do this before, so I\u2019m learning as I go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before Sawyer was a service dog, he was a rescue dog. Worthen attained him through the Standard Poodle Rescue while he was still a puppy. Sawyer, his mother and his sister were taken from a hoarding situation and were given to the organization.<\/p>\n

Worthen started training him as a service dog less than four months ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always expected basic obedient behavior out of him, it\u2019s just taking it to the next level,\u201d Worthen said. \u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as old dogs when they\u2019re learning. They can all learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

A typical day for Sawyer starts no later than 7 a.m. He is fed breakfast and is let outside to do his business. Worthen then calls for Sawyer and they head to Sinclair. When they arrive, Worthen dresses him in his red vest and he carries her bags during the day. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he accompanies her to class and teaches students proper behavior around service dogs.<\/p>\n

Worthen said while he\u2019s not working, he acts like a typical dog: He\u2019s laid back, playful and adopts bad habits, such as pulling on the leash.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s smart, but he\u2019s pretty lazy. So if he can get away without doing something, he will,\u201d Worthen said. \u201cThe part of working that he prefers [the most] is greeting people and taking naps. So I guess you\u2019d say he\u2019s a typical college-aged student. He\u2019s more into the social aspect of school.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said most students that see Sawyer around campus usually smile or ask to pet him. However, she said it\u2019s important to keep in mind that he\u2019s working \u2013 not to acknowledge him directly and to ask to pet him first \u2013 otherwise he\u2019ll get distracted.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe aware of any service dog, they\u2019re working and they\u2019re working on maintaining focus, so talk to the person who\u2019s attached to the dog before you talk to the dog,\u201d Worthen said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sawyer is a 5-year-old standard poodle with a job to do. He can carry up to 20 pounds on his back and is learning how to help people down the stairs and open doors. Dr. Carolyn Worthen, director of the Vet Tech program, has recently started training him as a service dog and said both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tartan-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/sawyer.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-29Z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8307"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8373,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8307\/revisions\/8373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}