How Do You Train a Service Dog and How Can I Get My Pet Certified To Be One?
My clients often ask for my help certifying their dog as a Service Animal. I understand the reasoning: we all love our pets like children and long to bring them everywhere. Unlike Therapy Dogs and Emotional Support Animals, Service Dogs can accompany their person everywhere, from planes to restaurants to hotels. And while we all want our dog's support to anchor us, wanting a companion by your side and not being able to function without your dog are two very different things. Below I outline common questions about the process of training and certifying a Service Dog; the difference between the various titles such as Emotional Support Animal, Service Dog, and Therapy Dog/Animal; and who is responsible for their registration.
There are three types of certifications: Service Dogs, Emotional Support Animals, and Therapy Dogs. Each of these titles entails different rules and regulations, and only a Service Dog may accompany their person everywhere.
The “Emotional Support Animal” title simply indicates that the animal is necessary for their person’s emotional stability. The Department for Housing and Urban Development recognizes emotional support dogs as a type of “assistance animal” and grants them the right to accompany their owners to any living accommodation. Various species qualify and do not need to be trained to be certified. The benefit of this certification is that any person with an Emotional Support Animal may not be denied residence or occupancy in spaces where animals are not allowed. The certificate comes from a person's psychiatrist or doctor stating the need for the person to have their animal at their place of residence to function optimally. While training and socialization are ideal for these animals, they are not required.
A dog who has been certified as a “Therapy Dog” has undergone strenuous training and must be approved by a registered therapy dog school, such as Pet Partners or Therapy Dogs International. This certification allows dogs to visit health care facilities, schools, disaster areas, and other relief centers to provide solace for those residents or students who might be experiencing duress. A Therapy Dog certification does not allow one to bring their animal everywhere. Still, people have used this certification for many years to get their animals into establishments where they’re otherwise not welcome.
Regarding the training and certification of a Service Dog, it is the rank that permits dogs to accompany their person everywhere. Yet, there is no universally accepted standard for what actually qualifies as a Service Dog.
While Federal Law states that a Service Animal is not considered a pet, they don’t go any further to oversee their training requirements. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) states that: “A Service Animal is any animal that has been individually trained to provide assistance or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a physical or mental disability that substantially limits one or more of the person’s primary life functions.” But that’s as far as they go.
PET PARENTS BEWARE: Since there is no governmental regulation on what dogs qualify as service dogs, and no licensing of training establishments many “Service dog schools” are unregulated and bogus entities. Scamming is rampant on the internet. If you need a service dog, do your due diligence to find a school with a good reputation.
Can’t You Just Buy a Harness and Service Dog Licence Online?
Declaring your dog a Service Dog, buying harnesses, and flashing a photoshopped registration card is as spurious as parking in a handicapped zone when you’ve just twisted your ankle. Yes, you can do it; but the question is, Should you?
By definition, a Service Dog provides a service to their person beyond companionship. The attorney general’s office offers vague guidelines regarding what duties constitute a service dog, yet it does not set out rigid certification or quality control standards. In this blog, I hope to clarify a few things, including what dogs qualify as service dogs and what dogs don't and other certifications that will allow your dog or pet greater freedom and are attainable to the everyday pet owner. Service dogs serve patients with various ailments, including asthma, blindness, deafness, diabetes, dizziness, epilepsy, mobility problems, neurological problems, paralysis, cerebral palsy, chronic back/neck pain, fatigue, fibromyalgia, etc. multiple sclerosis, narcolepsy, and paralysis.
And those who train Service Dogs for people spend months, sometimes years, conditioning dogs to the routines and rituals they’ll be required to perform. Regarding the certification of a Service Dog, it’s neither the person, the trainer, nor the online store selling the paper copy and harness that certifies these dogs. While grossly unregulated, the reality is only a doctor or psychiatrist can sign off on the requirement of someone needing a Service Dog.
Here’s a description of service dogs’ most common duties and assignments:
Diabetic Alert Dogs
Service dogs can be trained to detect chemical changes in a diabetic patient’s breath, saliva, and sweat that indicate a fluctuation in blood sugar. Diabetic alert service dogs notify their person when they detect blood sugar highs (hyperglycemia) and blood sugar lows (hypoglycemia). At this point, the person can take the necessary steps to moderate their blood sugar levels. While service dogs are not as accurate as a continuous glucose monitor, they’ve been praised for the additional stress-relieving benefits of constant companionship.
Guide Dogs
Guide dogs are perhaps the best-known service dog, as they help their vision-impaired people navigate the world. Labradors, Golden Retrievers, and German Shepherds are usually the breeds trained to become guide dogs. They use a special harness with a handle to guide their people via selective disobedience. Dogs consider both their owner’s commands and their intuition when assessing whether or not to engage in a situation (e.g., crossing a street).
Hearing Dogs
Hearing dogs help clients who are hard of hearing. They’re trained to identify certain cue sounds in their environment, including smoke/fire alarms, doorbells, door knocking, phones ringing, alarm clocks, and their person’s name. Traveling with a hearing dog is an excellent way for a hard-of-hearing individual to gain autonomy and awareness inside and outside the home.
Mobility Assistance Dogs
Many individuals with a physical disability benefit from a mobility assistance dog. These pups are trained to retrieve objects, open doors, turn on lights, and perform other tasks specific to their owner’s needs. Patients who’ve suffered spinal cord injuries, brain injuries, muscular dystrophy, arthritis, and cerebral palsy are the most frequent beneficiaries of mobility assistance dogs’ love and care. Larger service dogs can also brace people with balance issues and help with wheelchair access both inside and outside the home.
Psychiatric Service Dogs
Psychiatric service dogs are specially trained to help clients with depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They’re trained to recognize a myriad of symptoms, including anxiety attacks and flashbacks, to help their people take care of themselves. Compared to emotional support animals, psychiatric service dogs are specially trained to recognize certain behaviors and are not legally considered pets.
Seizure Alert Dogs
Seizure alert dogs specialize in seeking help or calling 911 with a K-9 alert phone if their person exhibits symptoms of a seizure. They’re also trained to drag incapacitated individuals who’ve suffered a seizure or stroke if they’re in an unsafe location. Scientists are split over whether seizure alert dogs need to be specially trained to seek help for their people or if any dog’s natural intuition compels them to seek help for their companion.
Who Pays for Service Dogs?
Additionally, health care does not assist in paying for service animals. While the IRS approves many training centers like Canine Companions as 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations, the cost of purchasing a fully trained service dog often falls on the families investing in them. Families seeking a service dog can apply for grants from nonprofits to subsidize the cost of adopting and training a service dog, which often exceeds $10,000. But the bulk of the financial burden too often falls directly on the individuals who the dogs most. Crowdfunding via sites like GoFundMe is a popular method for raising money, but dog owners often have to take out loans to cover the remaining costs.
What’s Involved in Training a Service Dog?
Service dog training starts the day the pup is born, not the day I meet them. I coach my clients to choose the right breed and temperament for their service dogs. Once we select the breed, we do temperament testing to ensure the puppy chosen is the best suited for the tasks they’ll be asked to perform. For example, a hearing assistance dog must be highly alert to sounds, while an autism support dog must have an extremely low threshold for excitement. Once the puppy leaves the breeder/rescue center, the imprinting phase begins. A dog’s ability to roll with life’s distractions is ingrained during the puppy's 8-12 week phase when their brain is developing. During this stage, a puppy must be introduced to all the sights and sounds they will experience in their lifetime, from sirens and jackhammers to people of various ages and persuasions; this critical phase is called imprinting. I either coach my clients to do the imprinting at home or take the puppy into my home for 2-4 weeks to do the imprinting myself. Following this phase, the puppy continues to be socialized and trained like any other puppy would, using positive reinforcement to stay the course of happy human engagement with a strong emphasis put on socialization, routines, and foundational training.
The actual service dog conditioning begins at six months. They come back to me for a 1-2 week intensive where they learn to be alert to a diverse set of stimuli, following which I teach the conditioned responses to the person. Follow-up lessons are arranged if needed and can continue until the handler's confidence is reached. Depending upon the responsiveness, the service dog may need to come back one more time during the height of their adolescence, between 11 and 12 months. The general cost for training a service dog with me ranges from $7,000 to $15,000, not including the cost of the puppy. To learn more about these services, click here. The wide range of prices primarily depends on the services the dog is required to perform. Astronomical costs for training Service Dogs should cause pause; avoid anyone who will not meet and talk with you to detail their program.
Many of these conditions require the dogs to master a host of behaviors and be emotionally stable before being assigned to do the work. Others need less intensive training and can be assigned after learning to alert and stabilize a person in distress. The duration of training (and thus housing) varies greatly. And so does the cost. Training a dog to lead a blind person or serve as a constant companion for a disabled person can take a year or more, during which time the dog is nurtured, vetted, and trained. Canine Companions for Independence, Guiding Eyes For the Blind, and Blue Path are top-tier Service Dog schools, training dogs to serve individuals restricted by physical disabilities, eyesight, and autism.
In Conclusion
I get it when people call me, begging to certify their dogs as Service Dogs so they can take them anywhere they go. My pets are family and nothing pains me more than leaving them behind. Morally, however, being asked how to certify a pet simply to game the system puts me in an awkward position.
Training a Service Dog is a significant and lengthy endeavor that shouldn’t be taken lightly. When “pseudo” Service Dogs act out in public or make the news, it reflects poorly on those dogs who work diligently to ensure the well-being of their person. The good news? Our faithful friends continue to serve society in a myriad of ways. No task is too big or small for dogs whose happiest place is at our side. Whether you need them to help with a physical disability, mental ailment, or just to be your constant companion, nobody does it better!