No Certification for Service Dogs Doesn’t Mean No Standards
There is no certification or Papers for a service dog. However, there are qualified, poorly trained, and fake service dogs. Before you start a service dog program it is important to know the difference before choosing your program. Do you have what it takes?
- Daily Time Investment
- Willing to learn to be a good trainer
- Learn to Advocate for Your Dog
- Learn the difference between reliable compliance and obedience training
Do you want train your own dog to become a fully qualified service dog? Do you want to have a dog that no ones question is a qualified well trained service dog? Are you serious about learning how to train a dog to be a service dog?
If you have answered yes , this could be the online learning program for you and your dog. This online course is spread into distinct modules. These mirror some of the training techniques used in service dog organizations.
- Puppy Raising – Mental Stimulation and Socialization
- Preventing Behavior Problems
- Surviving and preventing bad behavior through adolescence
- teaching tasks to mitigate your disability
- stress inoculation and building tolerance skills
- Public Transport and Air Travel
- Crowds and obstacles
- Calm and Relaxed
- Keeping your dog healthy and relaxed.
The topics cover everything from choosing the best service dog breeds, why some dogs fail, how to set your dog up for success, legalities, behavior modification so your dog can handle the job. Reading your dog’s body and vocal language to prevent stress and emotional outbursts. Basic and advanced Service Dog training techniques. Altogether the course should take approximately 2 to 3 hours a week learning in total.
After completion, you will be able to solve problems as they arise, advocate for your dog, and handle confrontations and questions in public. Your dog will have good manners even in chaos, and have skills and behavior needed to do his job as a Service Dog.
These include active heeling. After all, you don’t want to be giving your dog commands every few feet to keep the ‘obedience training’ in hand. You want your dog to think, solve problems, and move fluidly with you in public.
In this program we are not concerned about training dogs to ‘shut down’ and not react.’ We want dogs to enjoy their life as service dogs. We want to create partner teams. Only then will you be able to trust your dog in public, and to work for you – even on those days when you are not doing well.
John – BlackRidge Service Dogs
We have worked for 8 years with service dogs. We raised them from puppies. We solved problems for people. We understand that you will have bad days. We don’t want to just train a dog for your good days. We want to help you train a dog that can assist you on bad days – when you can’t give commands or rewards – when you need a dog to ‘take over’ and get help.