Welcome to Our
Service Dog Training Program!
We are delighted to have you join our service dog training program. As your dog progresses through our comprehensive training and temperament evaluations, we aim to equip you with the essential skills and knowledge to become an exceptional handler for your team.
While we will continually provide you with specific tasks and exercises to reinforce your dog's training, our program goes beyond practical assignments. We focus on enhancing your understanding of canine cognition, offering product recommendations, and informing you about relevant laws and regulations.
Let's embark on this journey together!
An outline of how the program is built
The First Step
Entering our program
Public Access Test and Beyond
The first step is choosing the right dog, if you purchased a puppy they can enter our program at 6 months of age. During this time reach out to us for socialization exercises, as this window of opportunity does not last long! If you chose an adult dog we recommend taking our trainers with you to help you chose the right dog, then giving them a month or so to decompress before joining our program.
This is going to be the first step to having your dog trained as a service dog (if they are the right fit), we will start with an evaluation both for the dog and the needs of the handler. If this goes well we will start the training of your dog. This will take anywhere between 1.5-2 years on average. While we are training your dog we will also have homework for you, so that once the two of you start working together the transition from the trainer will be easier and smoother.
Once your dog graduates our program we will start working with you and your dog together, this can sometimes take up to 6 months, but with our program it is normally less. As the two of you get more confident we will have you take a Public Access Test which if you pass you will receive our patch on their vest, if not, you can always re-try. While this does mean a graduation, we would like you to think of this as life long learning; a dog is not a robot and requires constant training and fine tuning to keep up their skills and help them learn correct behaviors in different situations. We are your support team and we will be here to guide you!
"Good service dogs are both born and made."
- Dr. Cattet
