Paws for Purple Hearts: What It Takes to Be an Assistance Dog

Superstar Oakley on the USS Hornet. photo Paws for Purple Hearts

Assistance dogs live a life of service that requires meticulous training and testing to ensure they are well-suited for their roles.  At the nonprofit Paws for Purple Hearts (PPH), dogs are trained to help veterans and active duty service members with mobility issues and/or trauma-related conditions through assistance dog placement and canine-assisted therapy. As part of this unique program, the dogs themselves even have a say in determining their own paths to becoming assistance dogs. 

“It's essential we identify our dog's strengths and align them with a career that they want to do. It's vital our dogs enjoy their work, so they can live a healthy and happy life,” says Casey Koslosky, a PPH national client manager. “Ultimately, they tell us what they want to do. We solely facilitate their placement.”

To ensure they are prepared for their lifelong partnerships, PPH thoroughly trains each dog, observes their strengths, and performs rigorous testing to successfully place both facility dogs and service dogs. Facility dogs are typically used in a location that veterans and active duty service members frequent, such as a Veterans Administration building, to provide a welcoming environment, while service dogs are placed with an individual warrior. 

Each assistance dog is trained for two to three years, learning commands to help mitigate a person’s trauma-related symptoms and to assist those with limited mobility. Once the groundwork is laid in the first year-and-a-half of training, PPH begins public access testing and “working finals” to assess a dog’s progress. These tests allow PPH to assess a dog’s knowledge of commands, ability to work in public, and ability to perform necessary tasks over a long period of time in different environments. 

An important element at this stage of training is taking the dog on bigger field trips to experience novel sights, sounds, and smells, such as visiting a zoo or seeing fireworks. Each graduating dog must complete the necessary field trips on their graduation checklist to ensure their ability to work comfortably and confidently in a variety of environments and amid distractions. Assistance dogs must be able to work in any environment to provide support for their handlers no matter the situation. 

Another key element as a dog nears graduation is the personality test, which is conducted on each dog and each human client. The personality test helps determine the type of person who would be best suited to an individual dog and vice versa. While some say opposites attract, for assistance dog placements, PPH has found that similar personality types generally make the best teams. 

As graduation approaches, PPH invites clients who will be receiving an assistance dog to a two-week client training program, which allows them to learn the commands their assistance dog can perform and how to care for their new teammate. The first week of client training involves lectures and hands-on practice with a number of dogs. Once they have completed a week of hands-on practice, clients are matched up with the individual dog that will become their own. 

Oakley exhibiting her good dog behavior. photo: Paws for Purple Hearts

After client teams are announced, PPH then uses a unique process called “umbilical cording,” in which each client is attached to their dog for the rest of the team training. This technique promotes faster bonding between the teammates and allows them to facilitate a deep relationship before the dog is actually placed with them. 

As clients advance into the second week of training, they begin to take the knowledge they learned in the classroom and apply it to real-life situations. And as the training draws to a close, final testing is performed on each team to ensure the placement is still the correct fit after a week of solidifying their bond together. 

Once the last tests are completed, there is only one thing left: team graduation!

The Paws for Purple Hearts assistance dog graduations are the heartfelt culmination of each dog’s years of training, leading up until their final placement with their warrior. 

As the dogs walk proudly across the stage, each warrior, volunteer, trainer, and VA staff member who touched their lives throughout their training is walking with them. Each and every one played an important role in helping to shape them into the assistance dog they are today, ready to serve their very own warrior with loyalty and love. 

Paws for Purple Hearts is excited to announce it will hold an Assistance Dog Graduation on Saturday, July 22, right here in the Bay Area. Join us aboard the USS Hornet to see the special ceremony where assistance dogs will take their next step with their forever person. The ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. If you would like to attend, please contact Olivia Hughes at oliviah@pawsforpurplehearts.org for more information.