Owning a dog has been proven to have many benefits to humans, such as increased fitness levels, lower stress, and promote overall happiness. While you may consider your dog your best friend, they can also be used for jobs that help us with our everyday lives. These are called service dogs.
Service dogs are specially trained dogs to help disabled individuals in their daily lives. You may have seen a service dog while you are out and about in public settings, usually, they are wearing a special vest or harness to indicate that they are working. Many different breeds can serve as service dogs for many different kinds of disabilities. There are also different types of service dogs, such as mobility dogs, guide dogs, and therapy dogs.
As we mentioned, service dogs are specially trained to assist their owner. If you are interested in owning a service dog, they will need to go through this training. This can be done by you or a professional dog trainer. This is rigorous training and consists of much more than basic obedience commands such as “sit” and “stay.”
In this article, we will discuss the purpose of service dogs, common service dog breeds, and tips for training a service dog on your own.
Purpose of Service Dogs
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a service dog is “a dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability.” Disabilities can vary from person to person, so the actions that a service dog can perform may be different. Service animals have public access rights set forth by the United States local governments.
The purpose of a service dog is to take a specific action that helps lessen or make an individual’s disability easier. The task the dog performs is directly related to the person’s disability. Service animals are important because make daily tasks run smoother and allow a disabled person to live a more independent life. An assistance animal is usually always on alert for its human needs. The ADA does not consider service animals pets, but working animals.
Types of Service Dogs
When service dogs first started becoming popular in the 1920s, it was mostly guiding dogs to assist blind individuals. Because different individuals can have different disabilities, service dogs can be trained for different situations and purposes. Today, there are a wide variety of different types of service dogs.
Guide Dogs
Since these were one of the first kinds of service dogs, they are probably one of the most popular. Guide Dogs are trained with the purpose of helping blind or low-vision individuals with their lives.
A fun fact about Guide Dogs is they have to be specially trained to “selectively disobey” their owners. This means they will take commands but will disobey the command to protect their human. An example of this is the owner commands the dog to cross the street, but the dog disobeys because there is oncoming traffic their human cannot see.
Hearing Dogs
Hearing Dogs are a type of service dog that assists deaf or hard-of-hearing persons. When the trained dog hears a cue, either inside the home or in public spaces, it will nudge the owner to alert them. These cues can consist of smoke or fire alarms, security alarms, doorbells, phone calls, alarm clocks, and even the person’s name.
Mobility Dogs
This type of trained service dog is paired with individuals who suffer from mobility issues and physical disabilities. They can be a good fit for individuals with medical conditions such as spinal cord injuries, muscular dystrophy, arthritis, cerebral palsy, or owners that are in wheelchairs. Mobility Dogs can perform actions such as turning on a light, opening doors and retrieving objects for their owners.
Psychiatric Service Dogs
Psychiatric Service Animals are also called “companion animals.” They can help with mental health conditions such as panic attacks, depression, schizophrenia, and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
Because of their service dog training, Psychiatric Service Dogs can sense the change in their owner’s mental state and anticipate when they are about to experience negative symptoms, such as an anxiety attack. This type of service dog work can help their handler’s disability by making them feel protected, comfortable and confident.
Allergy Detection Dogs
Allergy Detection Dogs are used by individuals with severe anaphylactic allergies. This means they could go into anaphylactic shock just by coming into proximity to their allergen. Common substances that these dogs are trained to detect are peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, soy, and wheat, but the allergen can be almost anything depending on the person.
These types of service animals are most often paired with children since they are more likely to have severe allergies than adults. They often wear a vest with medical information about the owner in case of emergency, this way medical professionals can easily assist.
Seizure Alert Dogs
Seizure Alert Dogs are trained to help their handler before, during, and after a seizure. Their training sessions include performing actions such as finding help from first responders or calling 911, moving their owner to a safe space and retrieving medicine for their owner following a seizure.
Diabetic Alert Dogs
A Diabetic Alert Dog is trained to alert their person to potentially-deadly blood sugar highs (hyperglycemia) and lows (hypoglycemia). When the dog alerts the owner, they know to check their blood sugar levels and adjust accordingly.
Emotional Support Animals/Therapy Dogs
Emotional support animals or therapy dogs are a common controversy in the world of service animals. These animals are registered to provide comfort and support to their owner just by being in their presence. Although this can be helpful for someone with mental disabilities or even hospital patients, these dogs are technically not trained to perform an assistive action, and therefore not considered a working animal by the ADA. There is a specific distinction between Emotional Support Animals (ESA) and Psychiatric Service Animals.
Common Service Dog Breeds
There are high standards when it comes to finding the right dog to undergo obedience training to be a service animal. A specific breed of dog can be better than others when it comes to assisting with a person’s disability. It’s important to find a dog with the right temperament and skill. Below is a list of common dog breeds that make the best service dogs, according to the American Kennel Club.
- Labrador Retrievers
- German Shepherd Dogs
- Golden Retrievers
- Poodle
- Bernese Mountain Dog
- Great Dane
- Border Collie
- American Staffordshire Terrier
- Pomeranian
- Boxer
Tips to Train a Service Dog
Although there are training classes and professional trainers dedicated to training service dogs, the ADA does not require service animals to attend a specific training school. Group classes run by service dog trainers can have long waiting lists and high drop-out rates. Additionally, it can be very costly to have a dog specially trained for this purpose. Some organizations provide service dogs to disabled individuals at no cost or might offer financial aid to those who need it.
Service dog training will most likely require hours of training and lots of positive reinforcement for your dog, but doing it yourself will come at a low cost compared to professional training. If you are interested in training your service dog, check out these tips and training resources.
A service dog should have the following traits:
- Calm in Social Interactions
- Good Manners
- Alert
- People Pleaser
- Ability to Perform Tasks
Once you have determined your dog’s temperament makes them a good candidate to become a service dog, the next step is to get them started in a training program. There are many different options when it comes to training. The most important skills a service dog should know are foundation skills and public access skills.
Foundation skills include somewhat basic training skills for service animals. This includes house training and eliminating on-command, remaining focused in social settings and public spaces.
Public access skills include important service animal skills such as house training, settling quietly at the handler’s side in public, and remaining under control in a variety of settings such as public transportation, emergencies, etc. After accomplishing this kind of training, an animal can undergo a Public Access Test (PAT) to ensure the trained service dog is safe to bring around other people.
Both of these types of training can be completed using typical training methods you would use in obedience school. This can include positive reinforcement, clicker training, tether training, and basic commands.
Summary
To summarize, a service animal is a specially trained animal to perform a task or action to help its owner during everyday tasks. Service animals are important to society because of the help they provide disabled individuals. A service dog can provide a better quality of life and more independence for its handler.
There are many different types of service animals dedicated to assisting with different disabilities. A few examples of types of service animals are Guide Dogs, Diabetic Alert Dogs, and Hearing Dogs.
It is important to note that Emotional Support Animals (ESAs) are different from trained service animals because they are not trained to perform an action related to their owner’s disability. ESAs provide comfort to their owner simply by being in their presence.
Training a service animal should start with identifying the right kind of dog for training. Sessions will be rigorous and require the right temperament from your dog. The first things you should start with are the foundation and public access skills. We hope this article helped learn information about service dogs, the best breeds to train, and tips for how to train your dog to be a service dog. Stick around for more helpful information on pets!
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