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Service dog goes viral for flunking out of training school in spectacular fashion

He did, however, receive his certification as a Very Good Boy.

Double H Canine Training Academy/Youtube
Service dog flunks out of training school in spectacular fashion

There are lots of different kinds of service and companion dogs. Some are "seeing-eye" dogs that assist people with visual impairments. People with mobility issues, hearing loss, or who are at risk of seizures might benefit from a service dog to help them and keep them safe. People with autism, PTSD, anxiety, or depression can also benefit from a highly trained canine companion.

Regardless of the task, certified service animals must undergo an extremely rigorous training process. Their job is not an easy one, and they need to prove they're capable and not prone to being distracted. No one knows this better than the folks at Double H Canine Academy in Louisville, Kentucky — a training facility for pups.

The team at Double H also recognizes that not every dog is suited for a life of service. In a hilarious viral video posted to YouTube, it's abundantly clear that not all dogs are meant to follow orders.


german shepherd, dogs, service dog, seeing eye dog, emotional support dog, service animal, animals, disabilityGerman Shepherds make great service dogs. Well, not all German Shepherds. Photo by Anna Dudkova on Unsplash

Ladies and gentleman, meet Ryker. He's a German Shepherd who was a student at Double H trying to earn his service dog bona fides (bone-a-fides?). Unfortunately, Ryker flunked out in such spectacular fashion that the team couldn't help but put together a little "highlight" package of his best moments.

Ryker really tries his best, but the poor guy just can't help himself. He doesn't want to work; he wants to play. Ryker steals a tennis ball from the bottom of a walker, drags around an entire wheelchair by its handle, and pulls his trainer over trying to go after a fetch ball. There is no piece of equipment that he doesn't want to chew or climb on. There is no leash that can contain him. There is literally not a single distraction that he will not fall for. Perhaps his most extreme fail is, when trying to open a refrigerator door, he ends up dragging the entire thing halfway across the room.

Definitely not service dog behavior. Watch his contagious, fun-loving spirit in the video here:


- YouTubewww.youtube.com

The video racked up over 2 million views, and commenters agreed: Ryker may not have passed, but he was definitely a certified Very Good Boy.

'Why bring one thing from the fridge when you can bring the whole damn thing"

"Frankly, I don't understand why he didn't pass. I mean he folded the wheelchair up. He removed the walker from the person after they clearly were done with it. He washed the floor. He moved the fridge. What more could you ask of him?"

"My family and I adopted a service academy 'drop-out' ten years ago. He's still with us and is the most AMAZING dog I'll ever have."

"Being a service dog was not his purpose in life... still a good boy, his purpose was to give us laughs."

"On the plus side, if you lose a tennis ball Ryker is your dog!"

As you can see, Ryker is living his life to the fullest. While he may never be the world's greatest service dog, he continues to provide an invaluable testament to being true to oneself.


sleeping dog, dogs, animals, funny animals, funny dogsRyker is more cut out for this kind of life.Giphy

The list of skills that service dogs can have is astounding. Not all dogs will acquire all of these skills, but some of the basics are:

  • Carrying things for their owner
  • Guiding their owner safely
  • Waking their owner
  • Waking their handler and/or helping them up
  • Interrupting dissociating or freezing
  • Find their owner if lost
  • Alerting bystanders, calling for help, or even using a dog-friendly phone to contact emergency services!
  • And so many more

The fact that Ryker has had any training at all makes him exceptionally well-suited to civilian life. As a family house-dog, Ryker won't need any of the skills above, but his abundance of love and playfulness will serve him incredibly well with his forever family.

This article originally appeared five years ago. It has been updated.

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These Irish girls performed a sign-language Christmas classic to prove a powerful point.

Everyone knows the best thing about Christmas is the Christmas songs.

Image via iStock.

"Jingle Bells"? Classic. "Frosty the Snowman"? Timeless. "Feliz Navidad"? You know you secretly love it.

And this holiday season is a perfect time to think about how we can make our favorite traditions accessible to everyone, even people who may not be able to hear all of those festive classics.

That's why three students from Ireland recently made a sign-language sing-a-long of Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

Abbie O'Neill, Amy Durkin, and Joanne O'Donnell, who are students at the Centre for Deaf Studies at Trinity College, donned their finest winter hats and proceeded to jam out to one of the catchiest Christmas classics ever created.

Using only their hands, of course.

The video started off as a class assignment but soon spread far and wide via social media, both inside and beyond the deaf community.

"We've got such supportive responses and messages from hearing and deaf people from all around the world," the three friends wrote in an email.

The video currently has over 200,000 views on Facebook, where hundreds of commenters have shared their admiration for the girls' efforts.

Check the video out below:

It's a month till Christmas yo!! Irish Sign Language performance of Santa Claus is Coming to Town :)

Posted by Abbie O'Neill on Friday, November 25, 2016

But this wasn't just a holly-jolly gesture of inclusion. It was part of a much bigger statement.

Ireland has a deaf and hard-of-hearing population of over 90,000 people, many of whom rely on Irish Sign Language (ISL) to communicate and live their lives. But ISL isn't currently recognized as an official language by the Republic of Ireland. That means many in the deaf community face tremendous difficulties in schools that don't cater to their needs or accessing government programs that aren't required to provide interpreters.

In a broader sense, not recognizing ISL as an official language leads to a much bigger lack of awareness and consideration for the deaf community, too. O'Neill, Durkin, and O'Donnell recall going to see a subtitled film recently. The theater staff forgot to turn on the subtitles until several minutes into the movie. After the movie, they spoke to a deaf couple in the audience about it. The couple "simply laughed — they're all used to this lack of awareness and indifference from the wider hearing community."

In a broader sense, not recognizing ISL leads to a much bigger lack of awareness and consideration for the deaf community.

But there is hope on the horizon, in the form of the Irish Sign Language Bill, sponsored by Sen. Mark Daly, that would designate ISL as a native and independent language. The bill is quickly gaining momentum.

"The Irish deaf community have been denied equal rights and opportunities for years," Daly told The Journal. "The impact of this piece of legislation would be truly transformative."

If and when the bill passes, it will be due in large part to the efforts of Ireland's deaf community in bringing more attention to the conflict.

So while this viral video might look like just an adorable sing-a-long, it's actually a lot more.

Thanks to three students, it's also part of an important mission: improving the lives of thousands and thousands of deaf Irish men and women.

"The Deaf Community in Ireland has been fighting for years to have ISL recognised," the friends wrote. "We're just happy that we could bring some awareness to it."

That alone is a heck of a gift this holiday season.

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The cool reason you won't hear baristas shouting drink orders at this Starbucks.

A new Starbucks in Malaysia is like no other.

Mohammad Aizad Bin Ariffin just got a promotion, and it means he's "well on his way to achieving [his] dream."

He wants to become the first deaf Starbucks store manager in Malaysia, and now — as the new shift manager at a location in Kuala Lumpur — that goal is in sight.

Photo courtesy of Starbucks.

Although Ariffin — who's worked for the coffee chain for three years — certainly deserves a pat on the back for movin' on up, his deafness isn't all that unique at the Starbucks location. It's actually the norm.

10 of the 13 employees at Ariffin's store are deaf. And that's a big first for Starbucks.

The store, which just recently opened in a shopping center, is the first Starbucks in the world dedicated to hiring deaf employees.

Photo courtesy of Starbucks.

The coffee chain partnered with the Society of Interpreters for the Deaf (SID) to hire, train, and coach new workers, as well as teach sign language to employees who are not deaf or hard of hearing, according to Starbucks.

So is this Starbucks only for customers who are deaf?

Certainly not. Anyone who is deaf or hard of hearing will find the store especially accessible, but a customer who doesn't know sign language can write their order on a menu card.

Each customer is given an order number, which will flash on a screen to let them know their drinks or food is ready.

Photo by Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images.

The biggest difference between this Starbucks and others might just be the fact that you won't hear workers yelling drink orders at one another — they'll be signing instead.

The new store is part of Starbucks' mission to expand opportunities for marginalized groups.

For the deaf community — a population that faces high rates of job discrimination and unemployment — it's a cause worth fighting for.

Three out of four people living with hearing loss reported having more limited employment opportunities than their hearing peers, according to a 2014 study by U.K.-based group Action on Hearing Loss.

Figures like that show why we need far more companies following in Starbucks' footsteps.

To Ariffin, his promotion isn't just about himself, either — now, he's able to help other workers in his shoes aim higher.

"It’s an incredible feeling to share my journey and help develop other deaf [workers],” he notes.

Incredible, indeed.

Cheers on taking a big step forward toward your dream, Mohammad Aizad BinAriffin.

Photo by Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images.


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A Supreme Court justice said 4 words in American Sign Language. Here's why that's awesome.

On Tuesday, April 19, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts said, "Your motion is granted" in court. Sound typical? It's not.

Because for the first time in U.S. history, these words were spoken from the Supreme Court bench in American Sign Language.

To most people, that probably doesn't sound like a big deal. After all, it's just one little phrase, right? And it's not like he said something cool like "Awkward turtle" or "My hovercraft is full of eels" either.

He just said a thing that judges normally say in court.

Chief Justice Roberts. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

But for the millions of Americans who are deaf or hard of hearing — including the 12 lawyers who were being sworn into the Supreme Court bar that day — it means a lot.

It wasn't until 1982 that a deaf lawyer was given an opportunity to argue in front of the Supreme Court. More than three decades later, there are around 200 deaf lawyers working in America. By contrast, licensed lawyers make up about 0.4% of the total U.S. population.

“Some deaf or hard-of-hearing lawyers doubt that they can actually practice law," Howard Rosenblum, one of the lawyers who was sworn in that day, told the Washington Post. “But the real practice is based on intellect and deaf people have that in spades.”

“I think the biggest challenge has been to get people to give me the opportunity,” added Teresa Curtin, another deaf lawyer sworn in Chief Justice Roberts.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

And that illuminates a real problem in our culture: The assumption that people with physical disabilities are somehow less qualified to use their minds.

There's another issue, too, with the way we tend to dismiss those who struggle to communicate in standard American English. But whereas we're willing to learn bits and phrases of other languages to help us move through the world — who doesn't know how to say "hello" or "where's the bathroom?" in at least one other language? — we're much less accommodating of communication barriers like deafness.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

It's easy to assume that all deaf people have a supernatural ability to read lips, for example. But lipreading is a pretty ineffective form of communication. Even if you think you're doing a good thing by speaking slowly and oh-ver-ee-nun-see-ate-ing eh-vuh-ree sill-uh-bull, most lip-readers can still only understand about 30% of what's being said.

American Sign Language, on the other hand, is actually an incredibly efficient way to connect with people. It's clear, it's concise, and there are less complicated verb conjugations to worry about. You don't have to worry about talking over someone in order to be heard. You can communicate with anyone in a crowd as long as they're in eyesight, and that's pretty cool!

Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images.

Deaf people, like anyone else, are capable of amazing things. But if we're going to make them find their way in the hearing world, the least we can do is talk to them on their terms.

By speaking those four simple words in ASL, Chief Justice Roberts demonstrated a willingness to embrace the Deaf community and meet them where they are. Instead of sitting back and watching as they climbed across the hearing barriers, that one simple signing action communicated something much more than words. It said, "I see you, and I acknowledge that you matter just as much as anyone else."

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