Therapy & Service Dog Training
Since these two categories of dogs often get confused, I paired them together to look at them side-by-side.
Therapy dogs are calm, sweet-natured, bomb-proof, people-oriented, intuitive dogs that go with their handlers to libraries for children’s reading events, to visit patients in hospitals, to comfort witnesses in courtrooms, etc. They have to pass their organization’s certification process to be granted access to these places, which typically requires passing the first Canine Good Citizen (CGC) test offered by the AKC. As an AKC Certified Evaluator, I can prepare for and offer CGC testing.
Service dogs are highly trained, both for public access and tasks, to mitigate the disability of their handler. These dogs have hours and hours of rigorous training in order to go everywhere with their person and help keep them healthy. Such tasks can include diabetic alert to blood sugar, heart alert to heart rate and blood pressure, anxiety alert to panic attacks, seizure alert, as well as providing physical assistance such as medicine retrievals, bracing for balance, seeing-eye assistance, and so much more. These dogs are 100% bomb proof in all environments and while there is no legal registration in the USA (all of them are scams, please do NOT participate), most owners elect to put their dog through all 3 CGC tests as well as a public access test prior to formally declaring their dog a service dog. I can provide all of this at every step along the way.
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