Service Dogs
What is a service dog?
A service dog is a dog trained to perform tasks that mitigate a person's disability. Service dogs can be trained to perform several different kinds of tasks, including guide work, hearing alerts, retrieving items, and balance/counterbalance work.
What can service dogs do?
Service dogs can be trained to assist the blind, the hearing impaired, people with mobility-based disabilities, and people with brain disorders including psychiatric conditions, traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, and autism spectrum disorders.
Who trains service dogs?
While many service dogs are trained by a program, such as Paws with a Cause, some people do choose to train their own service dog. While this provides the opportunity to tailor the training to be specific to the person's needs, there are downsides to owner-training. Owner-training is often more expensive than getting a program dog, and owner-trainers have to face the prospect of a service dog candidate not being suitable for the job and "washing out".