#HowToHouston - riding the light rail with service dogs

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - FOX 26 News has been asking viewers #HowToHouston. Cathy Dorchuck, owner of A Pawsitive Approach Training, trains service dogs while riding on the METRO Rail line. 

"It's a beautiful way to desensitize the dogs to all of the different stimuli and it simulates an airport ride," explains Dorchuck. 

While she lives in Galveston County, she finds it worthwhile to travel to Houston for the dogs to experience and has been doing it for years.  

"It turned into a great place to train some dogs, the motion is its own distraction," adds Dorchuck. "They have to be bomb-proof and they have to recognize the seizure scent." Her mission in life is to pair her trained dogs with an epilepsy patient or a patient with juvenile diabetes. These dogs become the patient's lifeline and can often sniff out a problem and warn their human companions before a potentially life-threatening medical problem occurs.

Dorchuck also enjoys the ride on METRO Rail along the way.  

"You can't experience all of these sights if you were driving," says Dorchuck with a smile. "It's a safer way to see our beautiful city." To top it off, she tries to find a different restaurant every time she gets off the rail and she says she has found some real treasures that way.

METRO is helping one of the dogs be able to sniff out problems, no matter what's going on. Dorchuck says all of the METRO employees have been very respectful of her and her dogs-in-training, which makes her job easier and even more enjoyable. 

For more information about A Pawsitive Approach Training, visit http://positiveapproachdogtraining.com/. Learn more about riding METRO Rail by visiting http://www.ridemetro.org/Pages/index.aspx.