Our Owner-Trained Service Dog Program

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) defines a service dog as “a dog that has been trained to perform tasks or do work for the benefit of a person with any type of physical or mental disability.” Service dogs live with, and are trained to help, their disabled handler. Service dogs undergo rigorous and lengthy training to learn special tasks that enhance the independence and quality of life for their handlers. Because of the thorough and exacting training service dog’s receive, they are able to accompany their handlers anywhere they might go, including most public locations such as stores, restaurants and movie theaters.

Service dogs can be trained for a wide variety of tasks. These tasks, when carefully trained and proofed, improve the independence and well-being of individuals with various disabilities or conditions. Service dogs have successfully been trained to assist individuals with a wide variety of disabilities from diabetes to PTSD, Autism to limited mobility, blindness and deafness, and much, much more.

Well-behaved service dogs are given the right to accompany their handlers in public locations where pets may be restricted. This might include restaurants, stores, hotels, doctor’s offices, and more. With that right comes a responsibility to ensure your dog does not pose a risk to others. Businesses have a right to ask handlers to remove any dog that is poorly behaved, regardless of whether it is a service dog. Because of this, it is important that service dogs have had extensive training in public, and are predictable and safe around other people and other dogs who may be in public. Service dogs may not bark excessively, urinate or defecate, or behave aggressively towards patrons, employees, or other service dogs they may encounter in public.

No. PSD’s and ESA’s vary in a few important ways.

1. Training: PSD’s go through extensive training to learn tasks that mitigate a handler’s disability, and to learn to behave in a wide variety of new and potential stressful environments while out in public. An ESA’s presence provides comfort to their owner, which doesn’t require specific training.

2. Support: ESA’s and PSD’s both provide comfort and companionship to their disabled owners. PSD’s are required to learn disability-specific tasks that extend further than providing comfort or companionship. Emotional support is not a legally recognized PSD task, and does not qualify PSD’s for public access.

3. Legal Status: PSD’s are taught to mitigate their handler’s disability through trained tasks. Because of the extensive training and task work they undergo, they are granted the right to accompany their disabled handler in public locations. ESA’s do not need, or receive, such a high level of training, and are not granted public access rights.

4. Prescription: ESA’s require a prescription signed by a qualified medical professional for most purposes. A prescription is what makes a pet an ESA. In some cases, a prescription may be helpful in obtaining financial coverage for expenses related to handling a service dog, but years of training and learned tasks are what make a pet a PSD. No prescription is required.

A service dog works to alleviate the effects that a disability may have on their owner. They train extensively, and are taught special tasks that mitigate their owner’s disability.

A therapy dog works alongside their handler to provide a fun and comforting presence to groups or individuals that may need it. They often serve victims of natural disasters, hospital patients, children learning to read, or adults living in assisted living facilities who are no longer able to have pets.

Deciding if a service dog is right for you involves careful consideration of your needs, your lifestyle, and your abilities. Training and caring for a service dog requires consistency, time, and patience, and is a financial obligation that should not be taken lightly. Think about your daily routine and ask yourself if you are able to provide the attention, exercise, and stability that a service dog requires.

Speak to your healthcare provider. While service dogs do not require a prescription, your provider is a valuable resource in helping you determine if and how a service dog could alleviate the symptoms of your disability.

Identify the specific needs you have as a disabled individual. Ask yourself what tasks a dog could do to meet those needs and lessen the effects of your disability. Be sure that these tasks would improve your independence, as each task requires maintenance and training.

Gain knowledge on the legal rights and responsibilities that you would have as a service dog handler. Ensure that training and maintaining a service dog aligns with your goals for increased independence and improved quality of life.

Not all service dog prospects are equal. You will save yourself time and heartache in the long run by viewing your purchase or adoption of a service dog prospect as an investment. It will be a substantial investment, not just of finances, but of time, learning, and emotions.

Be patient and do your research. You will waste more time and money by jumping in headlong than you will if you approach buying a prospect as if you have all the time in the world.

Service dogs in training have public access rights in the state of Idaho, however, just because you can bring your in-training dog in public does not mean you should. Raising a sound service dog looks exactly like raising a sound pet for the first 7-9 months of their life. Build a relationship, improve communication, teach your dog foundational behaviors. Remain consistent with those foundations until your dog will reliably follow through on any command you ask of them any time you ask. That means your dog will sit 100% of the time, the first time you ask, whether you’re on a walk, at the park, in a pet-friendly store, or in your living room. Their “down’s” and “watch me’s” and “leave it’s” and recalls, and potty training should be equally reliable.

Once you have reached this point in training, you might consider bringing them into public with you. While you can legally do so, remember that any outings you bring them on should be for training your dog, not for companionship for you. Bring your dog on pre-planned training trips, rather than bringing them along to run errands with you. Keep visits brief, and focus on proofing those foundational skills they’ve learned, but in public.

Training a service dog never ends. Most handlers start out by teaching basic obedience to their dogs until their obedience in predicable environments is extremely reliable. Once these basic behaviors are reliable in familiar locations — usually at no younger than 7 months of age — these behaviors can begin to be proofed in more distracting environments, such as at parks, on walks, at pet-friendly stores, and in training class.

At this same point in time, handlers may begin to teach tasks to their potential service dogs. Tasks should be taught in much the same way as basic obedience is taught — at home, or in predictable environments until it is extremely reliable.

After several more months, and once the dog’s public behavior and task training are both very reliable, the team might then choose to begin training a dog in public in non-pet-friendly locations.

These public training sessions should be brief, and should be focused on training, not on the dog providing companionship while the handler runs errands. We recommend a minimum of 120 hours of active training sessions in public.

During this time, handlers will need to learn how to handle a leash and a cart while running errands, how to respond to appropriate inquiries from employees, and how to make space for their dog while navigating doors, parking, restaurants, lines, and other tight spaces they might encounter with their service dog. Much like having a young child, handling a service dog requires that you are always aware of where your dog is in relation to you and to their environment.

Once you and your dog have completed these hours and feel comfortable working as a team in public, you enter maintenance mode. Regular training sessions and continued exposure to various environments maintain your and your dog’s skills and ensure they are able to continue working in the future.

Pricing for training a service dog is extremely dependent on the abilities of the handler, and the dog, and the program and methods utilized to complete training. You can view our pricing options here.